Reports suggest guards shot at refugees as they tried to flee after first missile hit

Libya’s government is considering closing all migrant detention centres in the wake of an airstrike that killed 53 people after it was reported that guards shot at detainees trying to flee the attack.

Overnight the air force of Gen Khalifa Haftar kept up its bombardment of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, mounting raids on the international airport.

A UN humanitarian report said there were two airstrikes in the early hours of Wednesday morning, one hitting an unoccupied garage and one hitting a hangar housing about 120 refugees and migrants.

Reports, including from UN agencies, suggested guards forced the refugees to stay in the Tajoura detention centre after the first strike hit the garage, only for the second missile to hit the hangar.

“There are reports that following the first impact, some refugees and migrants were fired upon by guards as they tried to escape,” the UN report said.

The UN-recognised government of national accord (GNA) has accused the force led by Haftar of mounting the air raid. Haftar launched a military assault on the capital on 4 April in an effort to oust the GNA, which he claims is supported by terrorists and Islamists.

The GNA interior minister, Fathi Bashagha, said on Thursday his officials were discussing closing all detention centres and releasing the refugees and migrants for their own safety.

At the UN in New York, US diplomats blocked a move to set up an independent inquiry into responsibility for the airstrikes. They said they could not yet back a British-drafted statement, expressing concern about its call for a ceasefire.

US policy towards Haftar’s efforts to seize the capital by force has been beset by inter-agency disagreements in Washington and lobbying by both sides in the civil war that has raged off and on in Libya since Col Muammar Gaddafi was ousted with the help of Nato forces in 2011.

The EU, UN agencies in Libya, Britain and Italy had been leading calls for an investigation into Wednesday’s attack that might eventually lead to war crime charges.

Play Video 1:08 Tripoli detention centre hit by airstrike, killing at least 44 people – video

There is a widespread assumption, including from former British diplomats in Libya, that Haftar’s airforce was responsible for the strikes. Many diplomats believe Haftar’s airforce had clearly signalled it was prepared to take greater risks in targeting perceived military sites of militia backing the GNA.

The detention centre was adjacent to a militia headquarters at the Naarn military camp. The UN had given the coordinates to all sides in the conflict.

UN agencies said they were trying to remove all refugees and migrants from the areas of fighting around Tripoli, but 600 were still at the Tajoura camp. More than 3,800 people were “arbitrarily detained” in camps across Libya that were exposed to the fighting, the UN said.

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The United Arab Emirates, which supports Haftar, denied it was supplying arms to his Libyan National Army in defiance of UN sanctions, let alone flying the planes on behalf of the LNA. Egypt has issued similar denials.

The UAE foreign ministry said it supported UN resolutions imposing an arms embargo on Libya. The UAE said weapons found recently in Libya were not from the UAE, and it was fully cooperating with UN experts policing the embargo.

The UN said on Wednesday: “Humanitarian actors have repeatedly warned that the return of refugees and migrants to Libyan shores, and their arbitrary detention in unsafe areas, placed these vulnerable men, women and children at great risk of exactly the type of tragedy which occurred last night.”

It said it called “on all parties to the conflict to refrain from locating military assets within or near densely civilian populated areas, such as detention centres, and to evacuate civilian persons under their control, including persons in detention, from the vicinity of military objectives to a more secure place, and to take all possible measures to ensure that their essential needs [are met].”