Wednesday, October 4, 2000
GAMBIANS INJURED IN LIBYA
An unconfirmed number of Gambians have been left injured
following clashes in Tripoli and other cities in Libya
between
angry Libyans and immigrants from other African states.
Trouble flared between Nigerians and Libyans in the
Gargarish
area of Tripoli, on September 30 shortly after the
celebrations of
Libya's El-Fateh revolution anniversary. The violence
prompted
the evacuation of several thousand Nigerians including
Ghanaians
and Congolese from Gargarish area to a camp at Hai Islami
in
Tripoli by the Libyan authorities.
According to a report sent to the Gambian foreign office by
Muhamad Lamin B Jammeh, counsel general at the Gambian
embassy in Libya, fighting has escalated in Libya in the
past three
days. Mr Jammeh said "some of our citizens were attacked in
streets and others in their residences, stabbed with
knives, their
money seized, some beaten with sticks and their properties
were
looted. The situation is getting worse."
The Daily Observer also gathered that the black Chadian
community in Tripoli were also attacked. They were
reportedly
attacked in the city of Zawia, about 30km from western
Tripoli.
According to our sources, on September 26, an armed Libyan
group attacked the Niger embassy, where they were repelled
by
security forces.
The Daily Observer could not confirm what ignited the
troubles
but at least two Libyans have been allegedly killed by
Nigerians,
whose government Monday announced it would repatriate
several
thousand Nigerians who were "endangering their own lives as
well as those of other African immigrants" in Libya.
Information
emerging from the Gambian embassy in Libya says about one
thousand Gambians are in Libya, 97 per cent of whom are
workers
and only three per cent are students, mainly under the
aegis of the
Islamic Call Society.
In a related development, the African ambassadors and heads
of
missions and African groups in Tripoli convened a meeting
at the
African Centre to discuss the crisis. The group has planned
to
send a delegation to be led by the dean of African group,
the
ambassador of Uganda, to meet with the Libyan secretary of
state
for African Unity, Abdulsalam Treki, and the Libyan leader,
Muammar Ghadaffi. Sources told Daily Observer that "at the
end
of the meeting, the African diplomats visited the place
where the
affected Nigerians, Ghanaian, Congolese were camped Sunday
September 25 at 2am.
They have since been transferred to another camp near
Islamic
society in Fallah. In that process two people were reported
dead."
When contacted yesterday to shed light on the Libyan
crisis, an
official at the department of Foreign Affairs, said,
"According to
the report we have here, everything is being done to make
sure
that our people are protected and that the situation is
back to
normal."
Asked whether the Gambia government has plans to repatriate
its
nationals from Libya, the official said, "Well, we hope it
will not
come to that. I think diplomats are doing a very fine job
and they
are looking for the rapid solution to the problem." Further
quizzed
whether his department has statistics of the dead toll in
the Libyan
crisis, the official said, "Well, as far as our Gambian
community is
concerned, nobody has died yet, but we received reports of
some
sustaining injuries here and there, but not a significant
number."
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