Libya: UN calls for calm after mobilizing armed groups around Tripoli

Already undermined by the divisions between competitors in the East and West, the country has been found since in early March with two rival governments.

Le Monde with AFP

When Libya is in the full political crisis, with two competing governments claiming the executive power, the UN warned against “provocation”, Thursday, March 10, as a result of information on mobilizing Armed groups around the capital, Tripoli.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (Manul) claimed that it “follows with concern information on the mobilization of armed groups and” military “convoys, which” increases tensions in Tripoli and its around “. She renewed her “call for calm” and underlined “the importance of preserving stability”, urging “all parties to refrain from any action that could cause armed clashes”.

“I urge withholding tax and abstain from all provocation, in words and acts, including by the mobilization of” armies, tweeted Stephanie Williams, the emissary of the Secretary General of The UN for Libya. On March 4, M me proposed a mediation between rivals camps to facilitate the holding of elections, whose deferral in December aggravated the divisions in the country.

Pick. -up and machine guns

La Manul exhorted the Libyan rivals Thursday to “cooperate” with M me Williams as part of this mediation, “in order to achieve a negotiated crisis exit”. The US Ambassador in Libya, Richard Norland, said on Twitter supporting “fully the message of Manul” and called the various Libyan protagonists to “seize the opportunity to look for a political solution rather than risking climbing “.

Already undermined by the divisions between competitive institutions in the East and West, Libya has found itself since in early March with two rival governments, as it was between 2014 and 2021, then in full civil war after The overthrow of the Muammar Gaddafi regime. A government former Minister of the Interior Fathi Bachagha, approved by the Parliament sitting in the East, competing with the Cabinet in place in Tripoli, from the political agreements sponsored by the United Nations and led by Abdelhamid Dbeibah. , who refuses to yield power.

m. Bachagha has still not been able to install his government in the capital. But images and videos of convoys of militia vehicles that would be loyal, mobilized to the east of Tripoli and probably preparing their entry into the capital, circulated Thursday on social networks. At the height of the dam called “kilometer 27”, at the west entrance of Tripoli, dozens of pickups equipped with machine guns and medium and light arms were stationed on the coastal road, according to a journalist of the AFP.

/Media reports.