By Jamal Adel.
Kufra, 22 October 2014:
Sporadic fighting has continued today in Obari between Tebus and Tuaregs, with local residents from both . . .[restrict]communities still fleeing to safety in nearby villages.
“The fighting is continuing. It is sporadic but sometimes intensifies without warning” Ahmed Younis, a Tebu resident in Obari told the Libya Herald in a phone call from Murzuk where he has taken refuge.
The Tuareg militia involved in the clashes were launching raids into the town from the Tendi Mountain to the west of it, firing mortars and grad missiles, he claimed.
It has been reported that the number of refugees from the fighting runs into several hundred, with Tuareg families being moved to Ghat, Tahala and Owainat and their wounded being taken to Brak as well as to Birgin, southwest of Obari on the road to Ghat. Tebus, living in the eastern part of the town are being moved to Murzuk where their wounded are receiving treatment.
Tebu and Tuareg members of the House of Representatives, Saleh Galama and Ibrahim Kranfouda, both condemned the bloodshed in Obari at a press conference yesterday in Tobruk, urging the government to take immediate action to stop it.
In reality, there is almost nothing the government can do in the present situation.
Reports that Misratan forces had arrived in the town to bring an end to the fighting were premature, the Tebu source said. No outside forces had arrived, whether members of the Misratan Third Force based at Tamenhint airbase near Sebha or anyone else. However he believed that Misratans were planning to move. It had been reported by Sebha residents that some 80 armed vehicles had arrived at the airbase from Misrata and it was thought that they would be heading shortly to Obari.
Because of fears that they would support the Tuareg militia, additional Tebu forces were also moving to the town, the source claimed.
The fighting between Tebus and Tuaregs erupted last month when a pro-Libya Dawn Tuareg militia tried to take control of a local petrol station from the Tebu militia guarding it. A peace deal mediated by elders from local towns as well as by Zintanis broke down last week.
In the past three days, “we received some seven dead bodies and 14 wounded from fighting in Obari,” Murzuk hospital spokesperson Mohammed Whamer told the Libya Herald today. All were Tebus.
Figures for Tuareg injured and dead are unknown.
Whamer also said that the hospital was suffering from a lack of medical supplies.
In the town itself, electricity, telecommunications and life as a whole remain fully disrupted. [/restrict]
