Tag Archives: Libya

Smugglers made over $5 billion off migrants in 2015

A Turkish Gendarme officer detains a man believed to be a smuggler as Syrian refugees who are prevented from sailing off for the Greek island of Lesbos by dinghies wait in the background near a beach in the western Turkish coastal town of Dikili, Turkey, March 5, 2016.

GENEVA (Reuters) – People smugglers made over $5 billion from the wave of migration into southern Europe last year, a report by international crime-fighting agencies Interpol and Europol said on Tuesday.

Nine out of 10 migrants and refugees entering the European Union in 2015 relied on “facilitation services”, mainly loose networks of criminals along the routes, and the proportion was likely to be even higher this year, the report said.

About 1 million migrants entered the EU in 2015. Most paid 3,000-6,000 euros ($3,400-$6,800), so the average turnover was likely between $5 billion and $6 billion, the report said.

To launder the money and integrate it into the legitimate economy, couriers carried large amounts of cash over borders, and smugglers ran their proceeds through car dealerships, grocery stores, restaurants or transport companies.

The main organizers came from the same countries as the migrants, but often had EU residence permits or passports.

“The basic structure of migrant smuggling networks includes leaders who coordinate activities along a given route, organizers who manage activities locally through personal contacts, and opportunistic low-level facilitators who mostly assist organizers and may assist in recruitment activities,” the report said.

Corrupt officials may let vehicles through border checks or release ships for bribes, as there was so much money in the trafficking trade. About 250 smuggling “hotspots”, often at railway stations, airports or coach stations, had been identified along the routes – 170 inside the EU and 80 outside.

The report’s authors found no evidence of fighting between criminal groups, but larger criminal networks slowly took over smaller opportunistic ones, leading to an oligopoly.

In 2015, the vast majority of migrants made risky boat trips in boats across the Mediterranean from Turkey or Libya, and then traveled on by road. Around 800,000 were still in Libya waiting to travel to the EU, the report said.

But increasing border controls mean air travel is likely to become more attractive, with fraudulent documents rented out to migrants and then taken back by an accompanying facilitator, the report said.

Migrant smuggling routes could be used to smuggle drugs or guns, and there was growing concern that radicalized foreign fighters could also use them to enter the EU, it said.

But there was no concrete data yet to suggest militant groups consistently relied on or cooperated with organized crime groups, it added.

($1 = 0.8837 euros)

(Reporting by Tom Miles)

Assad’s future not up for discussion at peace talks

Hijab, chief coordinator HNC addresses a news conference aside of Syria peace talks in Geneva

AMMAN (Reuters) – The Syrian government’s chief negotiator said President Bashar al-Assad’s future was not up for discussion at peace talks, underlining the bleak prospects for reviving U.N.-led negotiations postponed by the opposition.

Bashar Ja’afari, speaking to Lebanese TV station al Mayadeen, also said his team was pushing for an expanded government as the solution to the war – an idea rejected by the opposition fighting for five years to topple Assad.

Ja’afari was reiterating the Syrian government’s position as spelt out last month ahead of the latest round of talks, indicating no shift on the part of Damascus as it continues to enjoy firm military backing from Russia and Iran.

“In Geneva we have one mandate only to arrive at an expanded national government only, this is our mandate … this is the goal we strive to achieve in the Geneva peace talks,” Ja’afari said in comments broadcast overnight. He added that these views were relayed to U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura.

Ja’afari also said Assad’s fate could never be raised in peace talks nor was it a matter that any U.N.-backed political process could deliberate.

“This matter (the presidency) does not fall under the jurisdiction of Geneva … this is a Syrian-Syrian affair, Security Council or no Security Council,” he said.

The Western-backed Syrian mainstream opposition decided on Monday to take a pause in peace talks. It said Damascus was not serious about moving towards a U.N.-backed political process they say would bring a transitional governing body with full executive powers without Assad.

A U.N. Security Council resolution in December called for the establishment of “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, a new constitution, and free and fair elections within 18 months.

Ja’afari also said any ideas such as those floated recently by de Mistura that sought to bridge the gap between the two sides should not touch existing state institutions or the army.

“We won’t allow any constitutional vacuum to take place. What does that mean? It means the army stays as it is and state institutions continue to function,” he added.

The opposition says restructuring the army and security apparatus is an essential step towards establishing a democratic Syria.

Ja’afari accused the Western-backed opposition of seeking to bring about a collapse of the country and replicate the chaos seen in Iraq and Libya after Western military intervention brought down long severing authoritarian rulers.

“They want to repeat the experience of Libya and Iraq … and turn Syria into a failed state,” he said.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Perry and Tom Heneghan)

‘Alarming’ number of migrants reaching Libya

Migrants sit in a port, after being rescued at sea by Libyan coast guard, in Tripoli

STRASBOURG (Reuters) – “Alarming” numbers of migrants are reaching Libya to cross the Mediterranean, a senior EU official said on Wednesday, adding a warning that Italy must be ready for them to avoid new border chaos inside Europe.

“The numbers of would-be migrants in Libya are alarming,” European Council President Donald Tusk told the European Parliament a day after Austria said it planned tighter controls on its Italian border in anticipation of a summer migrant surge.

Noting that anarchy in Libya ruled out for now the kind of deal made with Turkey to block what was last year’s main route into Europe via Greece, Tusk said EU allies must be ready to help manage new arrivals within Italy, as well as on Malta.

But in referring to last year’s chaotic movement of nearly a million people from Greece that saw EU states closing borders with each other, threatening the bloc’s cherished Schengen zone of passport-free travel, Tusk warned of a similar threat if Italy and its EU partners did not cooperate to contain flows.

“As regards the Balkan route, we undertook action much too late, which resulted among others in the temporary closure of the borders inside Schengen,” he said of the many months it took to enforce EU rules obliging asylum seekers to remain in Greece.

“This is why our full cooperation with Italy and Malta today is a condition to avoid this scenario in the future.”

Austria, which with France and Germany has long complained that Italy simply “waves through” migrants heading north, has said it expects double last year’s 150,000 to reach Italy and will tighten controls on the Brenner Pass frontier.

Rome has rejected criticism but some EU diplomats are concerned that Italy, which saw arrivals fall last year, may not be able or willing to accommodate a new surge and to hold people while asylum claims are assessed, as Greece is now doing.

Nearly 10,000 people reached Italy last month, compared to fewer than 2,300 in March 2015, U.N. data shows. Arrivals in Greece from Turkey have fallen significantly since Ankara agreed to take back all migrants, including Syrian refugees. Reaching Italy is much riskier than Greek islands off the Turkish coast.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the same parliamentary session that implementing the EU-Turkey deal remained a “Herculean task”, for practical reasons as well as disputes with Ankara over human rights.

In rare public rebuke to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, whom Brussels has assiduously courted in seeking his help to curb migrant flows, Juncker criticized Ankara’s summoning of the German envoy to complain that Erdogan was mocked on German TV.

“I simply cannot comprehend that a German ambassador should be summoned over an admittedly outrageous satirical song,” Juncker said. “This does not bring Turkey any closer to us but rather drives us further apart.”

Among incentives for Turkey to take back migrants from Greece is a pledge to revive talks on Turkish EU membership.

(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Alison Williams)

Border attack feeds Tunisia fears of Libya jihadist spillover

TUNIS/ALGIERS (Reuters) – The signal to attack came from the mosque, sending dozens of Islamist fighters storming through the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdan to hit army and police posts in street battles that lit the dawn sky with tracer bullets.

Militants used a megaphone to chant “God is Great,” and reassure residents they were Islamic State, there to save the town near the Libyan border from the “tyrant” army. Most were Tunisians themselves, with local accents, and even some familiar faces, officials and witnesses to Monday’s attack said.

Hours later, 36 militants were dead, along with 12 soldiers and seven civilians, in an assault authorities described as an attempt by Islamic State to carve out terrain in Tunisia.

Whether Islamic State aimed to hold territory as they have in Iraq, Syria and Libya, or intended only to dent Tunisia’s already battered security, is unclear and the group has yet to officially claim the attack.

But as fuller details of the Ben Guerdan fighting emerge, the incident highlights the risk Tunisia faces from home-grown jihadists drawn to Iraq, Syria and Libya, and who have threatened to bring their war back home.

Despite Tunisian forces’ preparations to confront returning fighters, and their defeat of militants in Ben Guerdan, Monday’s assault shows how the country is vulnerable to violence spilling over from Libya as Islamic State expands there.

Authorities are still investigating the Ben Guerdan attack. But most of the militants appear to have been already in the town, with a few brought in from Libya. Arms caches were deposited around the city before the assault.

“Most of them were from Ben Guerdan, we know their faces. They knew where to find the house of the counter-terrorist police chief,” one witness, Sabri Ben Saleh, told Reuters. “They were driving round in a car filled with weapons, my neighbors said they knew some of them.”

Troops have killed 14 more militants around Ben Guerdan since Monday. Others have been arrested and more weapons seized.

ISLAMIC STATE

Officials say they are still determining if the militants had been in Libya before or had returned from fighting with Islamic State overseas. But that such a large number of militants and arms were in Tunisia is no surprise.

After its revolt in 2011 to topple Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has struggled with growing Islamic militancy.

More than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to government estimates. Tunisian security sources say many are with Islamic State in Libya.

Gunmen trained in Libya were blamed for attacks on tourists at the Bardo Museum in Tunis a year ago and at a beach hotel in Sousse in June.

Tunisians also play a major role in Islamic State in Libya where they run training camps, according to Tunisian security sources.

But the scale of Monday’s attack was unprecedented. The militants were well-organized, handing out weapons to their fighters from a vehicle moving through the city, with knowledge of the town and its military barracks.

“We came across a group of terrorists with their Kalashnikovs, and they told us: ‘Don’t worry we are not here to target you. We are the Islamic State and we are here for the tyrants in the army,'” said Hassein Taba, a local resident.

The attack tests Tunisia at a difficult time. After Islamic State violence last year, the tourism industry that represents 7 percent of the economy is struggling to tempt visitors to return.

With its new constitution, free elections and secular history, Tunisia is a target for jihadists looking to upset a young democracy just five years after the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali.

“The battle of Ben Guerdane in Tunisia, 20 miles from the Libyan border … is proof enough that the Islamic State has cells far and wide,” said Geoff Porter, at North Africa Risk Consulting. “But what these cells can reliably do … and how they are directed by Islamic State leadership in Sirte, let alone in Iraq and Syria, is not known.”

AIR STRIKES

Islamic State has grown in Libya over the past year and half, coopting local fighters, battling with rivals and taking over the town of Sirte, now its main base.

That has worried Tunisian authorities, who have built a border trench and tightened controls along nearly 200-km (125 miles) of the frontier with Libya.

Western military experts are training Tunisians to protect a porous border where smuggling has been a long tradition. Ben Guerdan is well-known as a smuggling town.

“There are still some blind spots in intelligence, but they are advancing with the cooperation of neighboring countries and with the West,” said Ali Zarmdini, a Tunisian military analyst.

But Tunisia’s North African neighbors worry about the spill over impact of any further Western air strikes and military action against Islamic State in Libya.

After a U.S. air strike killed 40 mostly Tunisian militants in the Libyan town of Sabratha last month, Tunisian forces went on alert for any cross-border incursions.

Just days before the Ben Guerdan attack, Tunisian troops killed five militants who tried to cross from Libya.

But the fact that even after that setback, militants mustered a force of 50 fighters to strike the town shows the group’s ability to keep testing the Tunisian military.

(Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Islamic State greatly expands control in Libya, U.N. report finds

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Islamic State has greatly expanded its control over territory in Libya and the militants are claiming to be the key defense for the North African state against foreign military intervention, United Nations sanctions monitors said.

In their annual report to the U.N. Security Council, which was released on Wednesday, the monitors also said Libya has become more attractive to foreign fighters who mainly arrive through Sudan, Tunisia and Turkey.

The United States has carried out air strikes in Libya targeting Islamic State, also known as ISIL. A U.S. air strike in the eastern city of Derna in November killed Islamic State’s previous leader in Libya, known as Abu Nabil.

The U.N. experts also said they had received information about the presence of foreign militaries in Libya supporting efforts to combat Islamic State, but did not name the countries as it was still investigating.

“The rise of ISIL in Libya is likely to increase the level of international and regional interference, which could provoke further polarization, if not coordinated,” said the U.N. experts who monitor sanctions on Libya.

“In anticipation, ISIL has been spreading a nationalistic narrative, portraying itself as the most important bulwark against foreign intervention,” they said.

Islamic State has taken advantage of a political and security vacuum following a 2011 uprising that toppled the country’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Western officials have estimated the number of IS fighters to be as high as 6,000.

Late last year the U.N. experts said Islamic State had between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters. In the latest report they said “significant numbers of foreign fighters” arrived in the Islamic State stronghold of Sirte.

A senior Islamic State militant, described in an interview released by the SITE monitoring group as the new leader of the jihadists’ Libyan offshoot, said the organization is getting “stronger every day.”

The U.N. experts investigated whether Islamic State militants could use a backup of Libya’s banking system in Sirte to misappropriate funds, but all banking employees consulted said the system was either damaged or outdated.

“Consequently, control over Sirte does not give ISIL access to State finances or to the wider SWIFT system,” the experts reported. SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that banks use for account transfer requests and other secure messages.

“It is, however, likely that the site continues to hold all Libyan historic banking data, which could prove useful to anyone seeking to mask fraudulent transactions,” they said.

(Editing by Louis Charbonneau and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Tunisia says Islamic State attacked border to control town

TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid said on Tuesday Islamic State militants had carried out the huge raid on Ben Guerdan on Monday that killed 55 people in an attempt to control the town and expand their territory.

Tunisia has become increasingly concerned about violence spilling across its frontier as Islamic State has expanded in Libya, taking advantage of the country’s chaos to control the city of Sirte and setting up training camps there.

Dozens of militants stormed through the border town of Ben Guerdan on Monday attacking army and police posts and triggering street battles during which troops killed 36 fighters. Twelve soldiers and seven civilians also died during the attack.

Essid said officials were still investigating whether the group of 50 militants had infiltrated across the frontier from Libya, though officials found three caches of arms, explosives and rockets in Ben Guerdan after the attack.

“They wanted to take over the barracks and police stations and gain territory, but our forces were ready,” Essid told reporters. “They thought it was going to be easy and the people of Ben Guerdan would help them. But Tunisians would never accept them.”

The attack was one of the worst in Tunisia’s history and followed three major Islamic State assaults last year, including gun attacks on a museum in Tunis and a beach resort in Sousse that targeted foreign tourists.

Since its 2011 revolt to oust autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has battled a growing Islamist militancy at home and more than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight for Islamic State and other jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq.

But the increasing chaos in Libya, where two rival governments and armed factions are battling for control, has allowed Islamic State to thrive just over Tunisia’s border, and the government has been preparing for potential attacks.

The United Nations is trying to bring Libya’s factions behind a national unity government that would allow Western governments to help them fight Islamic State. But the group’s rapid growth has also prompted Western governments to consider air strikes and special forces operations in Libya.

Last month, a U.S. air strike killed more than 40 militants in Sabratha, a coastal town near the Tunisian border. Officials say many were Tunisian fighters.

(Writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Militants attack Tunisian forces near Libyan border, 53 killed

TUNIS (Reuters) – Dozens of Islamist fighters stormed through the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdan near the Libyan border on Monday, attacking army and police posts in a raid that killed at least 53 people, including civilians, the government and residents said.

Local television broadcast images of soldiers and police crouched in doorways and on rooftops as gunshots echoed in the center of the town. Bodies of dead militants lay in the streets near the military barracks after the army regained control.

Authorities sealed off the nearby beach resort town of Djerba, a popular destination for foreign and local tourists, imposed a curfew on Ben Guerdan and closed two border crossings with Libya after the attack.

“I saw a lot of militants at dawn, they were running with their Kalashnikovs,” Hussein, a resident, told Reuters by telephone. “They said they were Islamic State and they came to target the army and the police.”

It was not clear if the attackers crossed the border, and no group immediately claimed responsibility. But it was the type of militant operation Tunisia’s government has feared as it prepares for potential spillover from Libya, where Islamic State militants have gained ground.

Since its 2011 revolt to oust ruler Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has struggled with Islamist militancy at home and across the border. Militants trained in jihadist camps in Libya carried out two attacks last year in Tunisia.

“This attack was an unprecedented, well-organized. They wanted to try to control the Ben Guerdan region and name it as their new Wilaya,” President Beji Caid Essebsi said, referring to the name Islamic State uses for regions it considers part of its self-described caliphate.

Soldiers killed 35 militants and arrested six, the Interior Ministry said. Hospital and security sources said at least seven civilians were killed along with 11 soldiers.

Troops also later discovered a large cache of rifles, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades in Ben Guerdan, a security source said.

“If the army had not been ready, the terrorists would have been able to raise their flag over Ben Guerdan and gotten a symbolic victory,” said Abd Elhamid Jelassi, vice president of the Islamist party Ennahda, part of the government coalition.

REGIONAL JIHADISTS

More than 3,000 Tunisians have gone to fight with Islamic State and other groups in Syria and Iraq. Tunisian security officials say increasingly they are returning to join the militant group in Libya.

Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi five years ago, Libya has slipped into chaos, with two rival governments and armed factions struggling for control. Islamic State has grown in the turmoil, taking over the city of Sirte and drawing foreign recruits.

Tunisian jihadists are taking a lead role in Islamic State camps in Libya, Tunisian security sources say.

Tunisian forces have been on alert for possible militant infiltrations since last month, when a U.S. air strike targeted mostly Tunisian Islamic State militants at a camp near the border in Libya’s Sabratha.

Western military advisers are starting to train Tunisian border forces to help better protect the frontier with electronic surveillance and drones and authorities have built a trench and barrier to help stop militants crossing.

Islamist militant gunmen trained in Libyan camps carried out two of the three major attacks on Tunisia last year, including assaults on the Tunis Bardo museum and a Sousse beach hotel targeting foreign tourists.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Larry King)

U.S. spy chiefs expect continuing problems in Libya, Ukraine

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. spy agencies expect continuing upheaval in Libya and Ukraine, top intelligence officials told Congress on Thursday.

James Clapper, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, told a House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing that the United States had “great hope” that a new government of national accord will soon be formed in Libya.

But at the same hearing, CIA chief John Brennan acknowledged that the United States in practice was pursuing a two-track policy in Libya, in which it was engaged both in a diplomatic effort to knit together two competing, regionally based self-proclaimed Libyan governments while also conducting “counter terrorism” operations against a growing contingent of Islamic State militants.

U.S. officials now estimate that up to 4,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Libya to base themselves in Islamic State training camps that have sprouted up around the country, where they have joined up with hundreds if not thousands of local Libyans who have joined the movement.

U.S. officials privately acknowledge that efforts to bring together rival government factions are moving slowly at best. Clapper told the hearing that the rival factions themselves are far from “monolithic,” although even competing leaders agree that the Islamic State poses a major threat.

While diplomatic efforts continue, officials privately say, the United States is likely to continue periodic air strikes against suspected Islamic State leaders like one that earlier this month targeted a militant named Noureddine Chouchane.

At the hearing, Clapper and Brennan also discussed Russia’s continuing involvement in Ukraine. Clapper said Russia still considers Ukraine to be “Little Russia.” He said Russia “will continue I think to be a proxy for separatists to sustain their interests in Ukraine.”

However, Brennan added that there is “still uncertainty about how the Russians themselves are going to extricate themselves” from Ukraine conflict.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Signs grow of new Western urgency to stop Islamic State in Libya

WADI BEY, Libya (Reuters) – An hour’s drive from the Libyan city of Sirte, a few dozen troops man outposts along a desert road. They are hoping the West will soon be giving them more help to fight a common enemy: Islamic State.

Armed with little more than gun-mounted pick-up trucks, they are a last line of defense against the Sunni Islamist group which controls swathes of Syria and Iraq and which has now taken advantage of chaos in the north African state to seize territory there. Sirte is its stronghold.

“They’re getting stronger because no one is fighting them,” said Misrata forces commander Mahmoud Gazwan at the Wadi Bey checkpoint, a dusty outpost serving as a mobile base for his brigade of fighters.

There are signs of a growing Western urgency to stop Islamic State (ISIS), and Libyan commanders say Western weapons and air strikes will make a vital difference in the coming battle against their better-armed enemy.

But Western officials say just as important is the need for a united Libya government to request more aid and for the Libyan forces ranged against IS to bridge their own deep divisions.

Five years after Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow and death, Libya is caught in a slow-burn civil war between two rival governments, one in Tripoli and one in the east. Each is backed by competing alliances of former rebel brigades whose loyalties are often more to tribe, region or local commander.

Forces from the port city of Misrata – one of the most powerful military factions – have been on the front line of the battle against Islamic State since it took over Sirte a year ago and drew more foreign fighters to its ranks there.

Islamic State militants are also fighting in Benghazi to the east, shelling the oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider. On Tuesday they attacked further west in Sabratha city.

U.S. special forces have been holding meetings with potential Libyan allies. U.S. and French drones and British RAF jets are flying reconnaissance missions in preparation for action to help the local forces fighting Islamic State.

An air raid by U.S. special forces on Sabratha killed more than 40 Islamic State fighters last week, but there are no international plans to send combat ground troops into Libya.

Western governments are wary of large-scale military intervention but fear inaction may allow Islamic State to take deeper root.

A U.S. government source said the Obama Administration was pursuing a two-track policy. One is to try to knit competing factions into an effective government. The other track involves air strikes.

“When you see an ISIL training camp and we see them doing push-ups and calisthenics every day, they’re not there to lose weight,” Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the international coalition fighting Islamic State, also known as ISIL or Daesh, told White House reporters.

“They’re there to train for something, and we’re not going to let them do that.”

CONVERGENCE OF FORCES?

U.S. and European officials say infighting between the rival administrations is blocking U.N. efforts to cajole them into a national government capable of rebuilding Libya’s army.

Tripoli is held by a faction of Islamist-leaning brigades and Misrata fighters who took over the city in 2014 and drove out rivals. Misrata now backs the U.N. deal while some of the Tripoli political leadership is against it.

Libya’s eastern government is backed by an alliance including the Libyan National Army led by former Gaddafi ally-turned rebel Gen. Khalifa Haftar, and a brigade controlling oil ports. Its ranks are split, including federalists looking for more autonomy for their eastern region.

The United Nations-backed presidential council is waiting for approval of its new government from the elected House of Representatives in the east.

Frustration is growing in Western capitals after repeated failures of the House to vote or reach a quorum to hold a ballot on the new government.

“We have always made clear the intention of providing assistance in fighting Daesh. We need to take action where we can, that requires forces on the ground that we can help and train,” said one Western diplomat.

“Patience is very short with the House of Representatives.”

Italy said on Monday it would let U.S. armed drones take off from its soil to defend U.S.-led forces against Islamic State.

French special forces and intelligence commandos are engaged in covert operations against IS in Libya in conjunction with the United States and Britain, the French newspaper Le Monde reported on Wednesday. The French defense ministry declined to comment.

During the recent fighting in Sabratha, there were signs of cooperation among forces from Zintan and Sabratha brigades who back opposing sides in the wider national conflict.

Mattia Toaldo, a Libya expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, sees a convergence of forces who may agree on little but can work together against IS.

Misratan forces backed the new U.N.-supported government and could potentially work with rivals from Haftar’s Libyan National Army and the oil guards, who are both aligned with the eastern government, Toaldo said.

“We are confident here we can win,” says Mohamed al-Oreifi, one of the outpost commanders near the Sirte front line. “But we need support and new weapons.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Rome and Mark Hosenball and Roberta Rampton in Washington; writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Andrew Roche)

Libya could soon run out of life-saving medicines, U.N. warns

CAIRO (Reuters) – Libya faces severe shortages of life-saving medicine and about one million people will soon be in dire need of help, a U.N. humanitarian official warned, as warring factions hamper efforts to end chaos and form a unity government.

“Our estimation is that by the end of march, Libya may run out of life saving medications which will impact about one million people.” said Ali Al-Za’tari, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the North African country.

“If there is no medication and medical supplies coming in that will be a real issue for Libya.”

Al-Za’tari was due to meet Arab League delegates on a visit to Cairo to try and win support for U.N. efforts to ease what he calls a humanitarian crisis in Libya.

His main concern at this point is scarcity of medicine needed to combat diseases like cancer, and the state of hospitals in Libya, which has descended into anarchy since the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi five years ago.

Compounding the many problems are about 435,000 internally displaced people living in schools and other public places and some 250,000 migrants and refugees who had hoped to pass through Libya and find a better life abroad.

Since 2014, Libya has had two competing governments, one based in Tripoli and the other in the east, both of which are backed by loose alliances of armed brigades and former rebels.

STRUGGLE TO FORM A GOVERNMENT

The U.N. plan under which the unity government has been named was designed to help Libya stabilize and tackle a growing threat from Islamic State militants. It has been opposed by hard-liners on both sides from the start and suffered delays.

Instability has taken a heavy toll on healthcare facilities. In Benghazi, for instance, only one or two out of about a dozen hospitals are functioning, said Al-Za’tari.

A few days ago, he was notified that the psychiatric care hospital in Benghazi has no resources. Scores of patients lack proper care.

“It is really difficult for a hospital to continue like this in a town that is witnessing constant daily fighting in certain parts,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Al-Za’tari said 1.3 million people in Libya need humanitarian assistance.

“Today we are receiving requests from NGOs for food. That is not a good sign. It means you have a sizeable portion of the community requiring food intake that is stable food intake,” said Al-Za’tari.

Focusing attention on their plight will be difficult in a region with multiple crises, from Syria to Iraq to Yemen.

“The perception is Libya is rich and can fend for itself. Libya is rich but it can’t fend for itself today,” said Al-Za’tari, in reference to Libya’s status as an oil producer

“It is not an easy story to sell and I admit it. I am living it. Telling people that Libya has a humanitarian situation makes them go back in their seats and say ‘no way’.”

(editing by Janet McBride)