By Houda Mzioudet,
Tripoli, 15 March 2014:
Schools are working normally and the security situation in Sirte . . .[restrict]is improving despite this week’s clashes at Gardabiya airbase and the south of the town, according to the local council
There was fighting on Tuesday between Ibrahim Jadhran’s Petroleum Facilities Guards which had taken over the airbase and Libya Shield forces sent from Misrata to drive them out.
“Educational institutions from primary, middle to secondary schools have remained open,” Sirte Local Council’s spokesman Mohamed Al-Amin, told the Libya Herald. The Ministry of Education has also denied that studies had stopped because of the clashes.
Al-Amin admitted that some students had stopped going to classes because of the fighting, but that was no longer the case. “Shops too have been open since three days ago,” he added.
Meanwhile elders from central region have been organising meetings to try and bring about reconciliation between eastern and western Libya.
There is still nervousness in the town which even before this week’s crisis was considered one of the least secure in the country. “Yesterday, there was an explosion at a hangar at Ghardabiya airbase . . . and we do not know the circumstances.”
What mattered most now, he said, was reconciliation between the warring factions. [/restrict]
