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By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 25 May 2015:
There are reports this evening that Sirte power station has been forced to close down . . .[restrict]for lack of fuel after a supply tanker was hit in a government air raid. There was confusion today about the attack on the tanker Anwar Afriqiya which the government appeared to claim was hit in an airstrike when it was at sea, while Libya Dawn is maintaining that it was struck while docked in Sirte.
The Libyan army said that the vessel ignored instructions to alter course from Sirte to where the government is claiming it was bringing weapons. Yet the attack appears to have happened while the Libyan-owned tanker was tied up in Sirte.
The ministry of defence in the Tripoli-based antigovernment today condemned the air strike, insisting that the Anwar Afriqiya was carrying fuel oil for Sirte power station, which it was unloading when at least one government jet struck. There have also been conflicting reports of casualties with claims that one person died and others that four people were injured, including a dock worker while the tanker was discharging 35,000 tonnes of fuel oil from Greece.
Libya Dawn is asserting that the captain and an employee of the state electricity firm GECOL were among the wounded. It said that though parts of Sirte are in the hands of IS terrorists, the power station was not. GECOL warned today that the aborted delivery meant that further power shortages were likely. There were reports this evening that the power station had already shut down.
Libya Dawn said in its statement that the airstrike had seriously damaged the Anwar Afriqiya, wrecking the control room. Fire fighters had managed to extinguish a fire that had broken out aboard.
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