Friday, March 11, 2011

Libya’s aerial bombing of civilians and use of heavy weapons on city streets must be investigated as possible crimes against humanity, the top U.N. human rights official said Thursday.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also said she had received accounts of executions, rapes and disappearances in the North African country.

Reports of the “continued aerial bombardment of civilians and the use of military grade weapons and tanks on city streets” were outrageous and “would be investigated as possible crimes against humanity,” the former U.N. war crimes judge said.

Pillay, noting that the Security Council had referred Libya to the International Criminal Court, said security forces should not think they could commit crimes without facing prosecution.
Libya has descended into civil war with increasing numbers of wounded civilians arriving in hospitals in eastern cities, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
An ICRC team in Ajdabiya in the east of the country reported 55 wounded people who were brought into the hospital this week.

The ICRC also learned from sources that 40 patients were treated at a medical facility in Misrata and that 22 bodies were taken there.
ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger called on Libyan authorities to grant the humanitarian agency access to western areas, including the capital Tripoli, to assess needs.

“We have now a non-international armed conflict, or what you would call civil war,” Kellenberger said.
The ICRC, one of the few international aid agencies in Libya, has set up a base in rebel-held Benghazi in the east where it is helping to perform surgery and supply hospitals.

Kellenberger had no overall casualty figures for the country or reports from the western city of Zawiya.
Top Libyan authorities, whom he declined to identify, had told him there was no need for outside help in the areas held by Libyan forces, he said.

“We don’t know what the humanitarian needs are in areas controlled by Tripoli. I was told everything is under control, all hospitals are working perfectly, there is no need for external humanitarian assistance,” he said.

U.N. agencies remain shut out from Libya for security reasons, but are increasingly alarmed at sketchy reports of mounting casualties in besieged cities, U.N. officials said Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, India said Thursday it was in the final stage of evacuating 15,000 nationals from the strife-torn country, with its last flights due to leave the country later Thursday.
The government in New Delhi has organized planes, a passenger ship and help for nationals escaping overland from Libya.

The “Scotia Prince” vessel arrived in the Egyptian port of Alexandria from Tripoli Wednesday, carrying 972 Indians, according to a statement on the Indian Foreign Ministry’s website.
It said the final 2,400 people would return to India on eight special flights from Tripoli and Sebha in Libya and from Egypt by Thursday evening.

India has been working to evacuate its citizens from Libya since Feb. 26, as many countries have rushed to bring nationals to safety amid worsening clashes between Gadhafi’s troops and rebel fighters.
“The ministry is confident that [by Thursday] almost all Indian nationals desirous of leaving Libya will be back home,” the Foreign Ministry said.
“Two other Indian naval vessels have arrived off the Libyan coast bu

t in all likelihood they may not be needed for evacuations,” said an official in New Delhi who declined to be identified.
About 85 percent, or 15,000, of the 18,000 Indians in Libya will have been evacuated, with the remaining 3,000 choosing to remain, he said.

Official media reported Thursday that all 10,000 Vietnamese workers have escaped from the country.
The last of 10 special flights by flag carrier Vietnam Airlines touched down in Hanoi Wednesday with more than 200 workers, Vietnam News said. The airliners were operating from Tunisia and Egypt.

Labor minister Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan was quoted as saying that 8,728 workers were already home, while more than 1,000 were en route by sea and more than 350 others were traveling by other means. – Reuters, AFP