By Libya Herald reporters.
Tunis, 19 September 2016:
UNSMIL is asking international donors for millions of dollars of emergency aid to help 80,000 people in Sirte over the next four months.
It is appealing for $10.7 million for “life-saving and emergency assistance” for the complex humanitarian problems in the town as Bunyan Marsous forces close in on the final IS positions in the town. This is creating more refugees at a time when some Sirte citizens are also seeking to return to their homes.
UNSMIL’s deputy chief Ali Al-Za’tari, who is in charge of humanitarian aid, explained today the aid did not just embrace food but covered psychological support as well as the need to deal with unexploded ammunition and mines and booby traps. BM mine clearers have struggled to deal with hundreds of booby traps. There are still parts of the town from which IS has been driven, which have not been fully checked over. Many properties have also been badly damaegd in the fighting
Za’tari urged the international community to act immediately at Sirte’s time of greatest need so that the aid effort to the town could be scaled up quickly..
UNSMIL says that an estimated 90,500 people had fled the town since it was seized by IS in February last year. The majority has gone to Bani Walid, Misrata, Tarhuna, Jufra and Tripoli.
The damage to Sirte is a sad reprise of what happened to the town in the fall of 2011 when Muammar Qaddafi made his last stand there. There was extensive destruction by the predominantly Misratan revolutionaries as they moved in for the kill. For months afterwards, the locals were trickling back and rebuilding their town while international de-mining teams dealt with many tons of unexploded ordinance. In 2013 the population of Sirte was put at just under 80,000.
