By Aimen Amzein.
Benghazi, 7 February 2016:
Four local people were killed this morning in three air raids on Derna. Homes as well . . .[restrict]as the local hospital were hit. The dead included a 10-year old boy and his mother, aged 39. Also killed were two young men, said to be members of Derna Shoura Council, fighting Islamic State (IS) forces in the area.
The Libyan air force at Benina airbase in Benghazi has denied carrying out the operation and any knowledge as to who did it, leading to suggestions that foreign aircraft were responsible. More than one aircraft was said to be responsible for the raids which took place at dawn this morning,
Among the places hit, in addition to ordinary homes in the town’s Bab Tobruk district, were a local mosque, the kidney unit at the Alwahda hospital, doctors’ accommodation, a car park where members of the Shoura Council are based, and the area south of the town knows as Kurfat Sebaa or Seven Curves. This refers to the seven hair-pin bends on the road leading to Fataiah, the area mainly full of farms which is still partly controlled by IS.
A number of vehicles was also reported destroyed.
That Kurfat Sebaa was bombed suggests that forces opposed to IS were responsible for the attacks, but it is equally clear from the fact that civilian areas were hit that whoever was involved did not know Derna.
The civilian deaths are likely to reinforce public opposition to any foreign air raids in Libya, even against IS forces. There is growing belief that, however well prepared they are, there is bound to be collateral civilian damage. This, for Libyans, is unacceptable.
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