Tripoli, 21 June:
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), several thousand people living in the Nafusa mountains were . . .[restrict]forced to flee their homes because of the recent clashes around Shagiga and Mizdah between forces from Zintan and the Mashasha tribe.
“About 600 displaced people are currently in two schoolhouses in Shagiga,” ICRC delegate Alexander Griff was quoted by the organisation today, Thursday, as saying.
The ICRC added that it was providing much-needed aid. It said that yesterday, it and the Libyan Red Crescent had delivered mattresses, kitchen sets, buckets and hygiene items to the people sheltering there.
The ICRC noted that earlier this week it had donated enough surgical supplies to treat 50 weapon-wounded patients, as well as body bags, to the hospital in Gharian which serves as the main hospital in the area.
“Primary health-care units around Shagiga are administering first aid to injured people,” said Griff. “In support of the local authorities, we have supplied these units with medical items, including wound-dressing materials. Our colleagues from the Libyan Red Crescent have set up two health posts in the area as well.”
Meanwhile, the ICRC reports that fighting is continuing in Mizdah.
Quite separately, the organisation said that it was continuing to remove explosive remnants of war and to carry out visits to detainees, while pressing ahead with efforts to account for missing persons.
It said that it continued to support the efforts of the Ministry for the Affairs of Families of Martyrs and of Missing Persons to discover what had happened to those who had gone missing during last year’s revolution. It added that it was providing advice and support for the recovery and identification of human remains. It was important, it noted, to ensure that evidence that could help provide answers to the families of missing persons was not lost.
The ICRC said that earlier this month it had been invited to explain forensic procedures to the Ministry’s staff working on burial sites in Ajdabiya, Tripoli and Benghazi.
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