By Houda Mzioudet.
Tripoli, 20 August 2013:
The Al Jalaa Hospital in Benghazi reopened yesterday after a one-day closure on Monday in protest . . .[restrict]at an attack by gunmen the previous evening in which two security guards were injured.
On Sunday night an armed group arrived at the hospital and started threatening security personnel.
“They started to shoot arbitrarily towards security officers in the hospital, hit two of them and then fled away,” Mustafa El Senussi, director of the Al Jalaa Hospital told the Libya Herald.
The hospital closed until security was restored, El Senussi said, noting that doctors had insisted that work resume despite the fragile security situation.
Hospitals across the country continue to be the target of attack by armed groups. The A&E department at Tripoli Central Hospital reopened last Thursday after being closed for a week following an attack on a doctor working in the unit. Most of the attacks are carried out by friends and families who want an individual patient to be given priority. There are also a few cases of vendetta attacks, where a member of one gang has been injured in a fight with another, members of which then go to the hospital to try and kill him.
Security at hospitals is largely being left to individual institutions to deal with. Support from the Ministries of Health and the Interior has been minimal, hospital staff say.
“It won’t be long before the hospital may have to close again. The security situation remains very fragile,” El Senussi warned.
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