A private Tunisian hospital has allocated a special department for the treatment of the wounded fighters affiliated with the Government of National Accord (GNA) during the war with the Libyan National Army (LNA), according to the BBC.
One of the wounded fighters who received treatment in this hospital, located in the Lake of Tunis area north of the capital, told the BBC he had been evacuated along with dozens of fighters to Tunisia after sustaining injuries during a shelling by the LNA.
The number of wounded fighters who receive treatment in Tunisia remains unknown, and informed sources confirmed that the evacuations are continuing.
Tunisia faces a grave danger amid the divisions in western Libya as terrorist groups seek to exploit Tripoli’s war to re-organize themselves and control certain areas, political analyst Tariq al-Kahlawi told BBC.
On May 5, Tunisian security services in Ben Guerdane, on the Libyan border, said they stopped a vehicle carrying a group of Libyans attempting to cross the border into Libya, seizing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.
On May 3, Tunisia’s Interior Ministry announced that “three of the most dangerous terrorists” from the Islamic State-linked Jund al-Khilafah, or Sons of the Caliphate, had been killed in Sidi Bouzid.
In a display of the government’s cautious messaging, Tunisia’s Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui summed up the Tunisian policy towards Libya in an interview with the country’s official news agency TAP on Tuesday: “We do not want to enter into any axis. We want to be ‘the refuge’ and ‘the voice’ that gives advice to the Libyan brothers.”
The LNA has launched an offensive against Tripoli, the seat of the GNA, on April 4, with the aim of “liberating the city from militants.”
Earlier this week, the World Health Organization said the battle of Tripoli saw more than 430 people killed and up to 2,110 others wounded, while displacing over 55,000.
As the oil-rich country descended into chaos after the fall of long-time dictator Muammar Qaddafi, Libyan medical centers experienced a massive influx of injured patients which they could not adequately accommodate. As a result, wounded Libyans increasingly flocked to Tunisia for treatment.
