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By Farah Waleed and Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 10 April 2013:
Fresh violence has broken out on the south-eastern town of Kufra, scene earlier . . .[restrict]last year of heavy communal fighting between its Zway and Tebu residents. Two people are reported to have been killed and a number of others wounded in three days of mortar firing and shooting.
According to Ahmed Zway, a member of the local hospital staff, the clashes occurred outside the university campus near the town’s Shura district. He blamed them on “armed Chadian militias” whom he said were attacking the town with mortars and targeting residential areas.
Tebu militiamen are often referred to as Chadians by the members of the local Zway community and others even though some may be Libyan citizens.
Zway told the Libya Herald today, Wednesday, that four people had been injured and taken to hospital and the security situation was likely to become more tense in the coming hours.
According to a member of the Tebu community, the clashes started three days ago when Zway gunmen started shelling the Tebu-inhabited Shura and Gadarfai neighbourhoods.
“Nobody knows,” he said when asked why the attacks has started.
The next day, he said, Tebu fighters responded, killing a Zway man and wounding another. That resulted in further shelling which, he claimed, last night resulted in a Tebu girl being killed. Snipers were today shooting at anything that moved in the Shura neighbourhood, he said.
There have been continued intermittent clashes between Zway and Tebu residents in Kufra ever since a ceasefire in July last year put an end to fullscale fighting between them.
Three people were killed in fighting outside the university campus in January.
Six weeks ago, the Ministry of Defence said that it was going to act “firmly and decisively” against anyone breaking the law in Kufra following the killing of a senior Zway tribal figure in the town. Abdul-Hamid Al-Kidwa was shot dead while trying to prevent clashes between Zways and Tebus.
The situation was reported a few days later by Interior Minister Ashour Shuwail to be under control but that army reinforcements would be sent in. [/restrict]
