By Mustafa Khalifa.
Ghat, 20 July 2015:
Despite a truce agreement at the weekend, there have been fresh clashes in Sebha’s Tiwari district today . . .[restrict]between local Tuareg and Tebu fighters. Reports speak of wounded Tebus, as well as members of the Qaddafa tribe who are now said to be fighting alongside them, being taken to El-Fil oilfield and from there airlifted to Tobruk for treatment.
Leaders from both communities agreed a seven-day truce in the district on Saturday following earlier bloody clashes between the two last week. On Thursday alone at least six fighters were reported killed.
The aim of the truce, mediated by other elders in the town, was to enable streets in the district, where both communities live side by side, to reopen and residents who fled the fighting to return home. They have been housed in local schools.
The truce was further intended to permit the evacuation of the wounded and others in need of treatment to the local hospital. It was also hoped that it would result negotiations for a permanent end to the feuding between the two communities which, since it flared up again in Sehba a week ago, has resulted in more than two dozen people killed.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has meanwhile called on the international community to provide humanitarian aid to the hundreds of displaced families. There have also been calls to human rights organisations to investigate the fighting, in particular claims of ethnic cleansing in the town, and on the government to send in a neutral force to pacify the district.
However, a spokesman for Misrata’s Third Force, based in Sebha, has been reported saying that it was difficult to intervene between the Tebu and Tuaregs because the area where the clashes have been taking place have the communities too living together.
Throughout the south, efforts to bring about a peace have remained hostage to continuing mistrust between the two groups. Two days ago in Obari, 200 kilometres west of Sebha and where the current conflict between the two started last September, the Ramadan truce collapsed with three people killed in renewed fighting. [/restrict]
