Clashes between rival Libyan militias fighting for control of the international airport in the capital, Tripoli, have killed 47 people over the past 24 hours, Libya’s Health Ministry said.
The ministry said on its Web site late on Sunday that the fighting also left 120 people wounded. It also said it had not yet received the full casualty report.
The week-long battle over the airport is being waged by a powerful militia from the western city of Zintan, which controls the facility, and Islamist-led militias, including fighters from Misrata, east of Tripoli.
The clashes resumed on Sunday after ceasefire efforts failed.
Television footage broadcast on Sunday showed a mortar shell striking a Libyan Arab Airlines plane and a column of black smoke billowing from inside the airport, which has been closed since Monday last week.
Libya is witnessing one of its worst spasms of violence since the ouster of former leader Muammar Qaddafi. in 2011.
The rival militias, made up largely of former rebels, have forced a week-long closure of gas stations and government offices.
Libyan government officials and activists have increasingly been targeted in the violence. Unknown gunmen kidnapped two lawmakers in the western suburbs of Tripoli on Sunday, a parliament statement said, and urged the government to intervene to free them.
In the past two days in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, gunmen killed an army officer while he was driving home in his car and a former special forces officer was shot dead in the downtown Salmani district.
Meanwhile, suspected militiamen have beheaded a Philippine worker after singling him out because he was not a Muslim, the Philippine Foreign Department said in Manila yesterday.
Department spokesman Charles Jose said this reinforced the government’s order to all Filipinos to evacuate the country because of the worsening security situation.
He told reporters the Filipino construction worker was kidnapped on Tuesday last week and his beheaded remains were found in a hospital on Sunday.
“The vehicle he was riding in was stopped in a checkpoint. There were three of them — a Libyan, a Pakistani and a Filipino — and he was allegedly singled out because he was non-Muslim,” Jose said.
The kidnappers had initially negotiated with the man’s company for a US$160,000 ransom, but eventually “they received a call from the abductors on July 20 [that] referred them to a Benghazi hospital,” Jose said.
The beheaded body was found in the hospital in an advanced state of decomposition, indicating he may have been dead even while the negotiations were going on, Jose added.
He indicated that the killing prompted the Philippines on Sunday to order its estimated 13,000 nationals in Libya to leave.
“The threats to our Filipinos’ safety and security became more imminent. We would like to get them out of harm’s way because of this incident,” Jose added.
So far 207 people have registered for evacuation and will be flown back to Manila as soon as the Philippine embassy there completes their travel requirements, he said.
Additional reporting by AFP
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