Tripoli, 24 March:
New fighting erupted on Sunday morning in Kufra’s Qaderfi district between government forces and Tebus. One member of the . . .[restrict]government’s Libya Shield Brigade was reported killed and another injured. For their part, Tebu sources in the town claim that renewed mortar shelling of the district resulted in over 10 people being injured, five of them women.
On Saturday, two people were seriously wounded yesterday in the town when they were shot by snipers, claimed to be Tebus.
According to local sources, one of the injured, named Salim Awad Nazzal, was shot on Saturday morning in front of his shop near the road leading to Al-Jazeera Al-Khadra. The other, Muntasir Jabir Ekhwait, was hit in the eye while standing near a local school.
Qaderfi is inhabited mainly by Tebus. The Shield forces have been unable to enter it since fighting first erupted in Kufra in February. On June 8, there was another bout of clashes in which at least 49 people were claimed by both sides to have been killed, 40 of them Tebus. Following a de facto ceasefire, the ICRC managed to evacuate 99 residents from the town, 59 of whom had been wounded in the fighting and 40 relatives accompanying them.
It was reported earlier during the week that the Libyan Shield forces were to withdraw from the town at the request of Defense Minister Osama Juweily. Their withdrawal and replacement by units from the regular army had been the main Tebu demand following mediation efforts by a group of elders from Ajdabiya, sent to Kufra by the NTC.
The Shield forces are said to be ready to leave but are awaiting the arrival of national army contingents from a number of military groupings incuding the Zintan Martyrs Battalion in Benghazi , the Sahati Battalion as well as Ziad Bul’am Brigade. [/restrict]
