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120 killed,600 wounded in Libya escalation: WHO

About 121 people were killed and 600 wounded in Tripoli since the Libyan National Army (LNA) launched a military operation on the capital earlier in April “to liberate it of terrorists and mercenaries,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said Sunday.

The WHO added that eight attacks on medical workers and vehicles took place so far since the violence began in Tripoli.

“We warn of the dangers faced by civilians caught up in the clashes in the outskirts of Tripoli, and medical centers need urgent medical support to save the wounded,” the UN agency stated.

Amid a worsening humanitarian situation, Syed Jaffar Hussain, WHO representative in Libya, said they fear an outbreak of infectious diseases in the region due to polluted water supply and people fleeing the fighting in Tripoli.

So far, 6,000 people have fled Tripoli but the WHO has contingency plans in case “thousands if not hundreds of thousands” were displaced in the coming phase of fighting, the WHO representative in Libya added.

Earlier, Hussain clarified that after a week of fighting, 75 people had been killed and 323 wounded, including seven civilians killed and 10 wounded.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is meanwhile trying to evacuate 1,500 migrants and refugees from detention centres near the front lines. “They must be urgently brought to safety,” said its spokesperson Filippo Grandi. “Simply put, this is a matter of life or death.”

WHO’s Libya said on Twitter the organisation was sending medical supplies and more staff to Tripoli, while denouncing “repeated attacks on health care workers, vehicles” during the fighting which began on April 4.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met the LNA Commander Khalifa Haftar in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the recent updates in Libya, Egypt’s presidency spokesperson said.

Sisi expressed his support to the LNA counter-terrorism operations in Tripoli.

Al-Sisi expressed his support to the LNA counter-terrorism operations in Tripoli.

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