Libya has described the potential of a “total collapse” of its healthcare system as the chaos plaguing the country threatens to send many of the Philippine and Indian staff on whom its hospitals depend into flight.
Fighting between rival militias in Tripoli over the past three weeks and bloody clashes between extremists and army special forces in the eastern city of Benghazi have prompted several countries to evacuate their nationals and diplomatic staff.
Now, 3,000 health workers from the Philippines, making up 60 percent of Libya’s hospital staff, could leave — along with workers from India, who account for 20 percent.
Photo: AFP
Meanwhile, Libyan hospitals are flooded with a wave of admissions, victims of the fighting which has shaken the capital and Benghazi.
In Tripoli, at least 102 people have been killed and 452 wounded in the clashes that began on July 13, Libya’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.
It said 77 people have been killed and 289 wounded in Benghazi.
Manila already urged its citizens in Libya to leave on July 20, after a kidnapped Filipino worker was found beheaded.
Of the estimated 13,000 Filipinos in Libya, only about 700 heeded the warning and left. The rest refused to abandon their jobs, despite the dangers.
However, Manila said on Thursday that it would charter ferries to evacuate its nationals, a day after a Filipina nurse was kidnapped and gang raped in Tripoli.
Hundreds of Philippine doctors and nurses in Tripoli’s Medical Center walked out in protest at the savage attack on their colleague, unleashing anarchy in the hospital.
Families were forced to transfer sick relatives to private clinics, a hospital official said.
“Hospitals could be paralyzed” in the event of the mass departure of Philippine nationals, a health ministry spokesman said.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS