By RFIPosted on 04-07-2019Modified on 04-07-2019 at 23:10

The toll looms after the double strike that hit a migrant center in Tajoura, a suburb of Tripoli. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is now talking about 53 victims including six children. This is the deadliest strike since the beginning of the military offensive led by Khalifa Haftar to take control of Tripoli last April. According to OCHA, the guards at this detention camp did not help the injured migrants.

Two strikes hit the detention center of migrants and refugees in the night of Wednesday, July 3 in Tajoura. According to OCHA, the first fell on an empty car park, the second on a shed where 120 migrants were sheltering. Some 500 people were present in the detention center this Tuesday, July 2 in the evening. When migrants tried to flee following the first missile, guards shot at them.

The refugee camps in Tripoli are guarded by militias loyal to the national unity government. The UN organization reports the testimony of Osman Moussa from Nigeria. Some people, she says, were " wounded and died on the road as they fled ".

According to the International Organization for Migrants (IOM) communication officer in Libya, quoted by AFP, his teams had located and then transferred to the hospital a group of wounded migrants in the surrounding neighborhoods, after they had left Tajoura following the attack.

According to the IOM, some 300 people are still there, in this detention center located in a military complex that houses several camps and weapons depots. This area has been targeted several times by Khalifa Haftar's aviation in recent weeks. In evoking this tragedy, the UN envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salamé, denounced a " war crime ".

►The OCHA report in English to consult here

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