By Libya Herald reporters.
Benghazi, 16 May 2015 :
The number of people killed in Thursday’s missile attack on a house in Benghazi’s Salam East district . . .[restrict]where a wedding was being celebrated has now risen to ten. Initially the death toll was put at eight – seven children and an adult – but two more people injured when a missile hit the house near the vehicle market are reported to have subsequently died.
Meanwhile condemnation of the attack has come from both sides of the Libyan divide as well as from the UN.
The Libyan government in Beida has denounced the killings. So too has the Tripoli-based “government” of Khalifa Ghwell although, according to Al-Nabaa TV, it has blamed them on Khalifa Hafter.
For its part, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has similarly denounced them as well as the attacks in Gharyan the same day in which, fortunately, no one was killed or injured.
Meanwhile in Benghazi, ordinary residents gathered yesterday in Kish Square to express their sorrow and anger at the slaughter.
Despite the Tripoli statement, it is not clear who was responsible for the killings, which happened two days after three other children – two brothers and a sister – died in a missile attack on their home in the city’s Belawn distict.
In Bengahzi and the east of the country, most random shelling in the city is blamed on Ansar Al-Sharia. However, on Wednesday, the Islamic State (IS) claimed on its Facebook page that it was responsible for the missile attacks, publishing photos of the mortars being launched and saying that they were attacking Operation Dignity forces – or, as they put it, “soldiers of the tyrant”, an evident reference to Hafter.
In Its condemnation, UNSMIL restated that attacks against civilians “are prohibited under international humanitarian law and can constitute war crimes”. However, militias in Benghazi and elsewhere in Libya are convinced they can act with impunity and have little interest in what the international community says or thinks about them.
Six of the seven children killed have been named as:
- Muhamed Ali Osman
- Safa Abdulrahman
- Osman Faitouri
- Malek Mahmoud Uraeid
- Uribe Mahmoud Harus
- Ayoub Mahmoud
The adults killed were 25-year-old Hamza Osman Misrati, said to be the brother of the groom, and Mohamed Ashour Aisa Faitouri and Awad Muftah Awad Faitouri, both aged 30. [/restrict]
