Warplanes from Libya’s official government attacked an oil tanker off the coast near the city of Sirte, wounding two people, officials said yesterday.
“Our jets warned an unflagged ship off Sirte city, but it ignored the warning,” Saqer al-Joroushi said. “We gave it a chance to evaluate the situation, then our fighting jets attacked the ship because it was unloading fighters and weapons,” he added.
“The ship now is on fire. We are in war and we do not accept any security breaches, whether by land, air or sea,” Joroushi added.
An oil industry official said the ship was actually a tanker which had been carrying 25,000 tonnes of gasoil. He named the tanker as Anwar Afriqya.
Rida Essa, commander of coastal guards in central Libya, said the tanker had been unloading gasoil for Sirte’s power plant when it came under attack. The ship was still on fire, he said.
He said a crew member and a port worker had been wounded.
Libya’s is still in the midst of a power struggle between two governments fighting for control, with the internationally recognised government operating out of the east since losing control of the capital in August to the rival grouping.
Sirte’s power plant on the western outskirts of the city is controlled by forces loyal to the Tripoli government. The rest of the city has fallen into the hands of Islamic State militants which have exploited the chaos and security vacuum in Libya four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.
If Europe doesn’t cooperate, after some years it will be completely black
Meanwhile the de facto government in Tripoli said yesterday Europe cannot halt the deadly traffic of African migrants across the Mediterranean unless it ends a boycott of forces that have seized power in the Libyan capital and help Tripoli authorities.
“We tell you: come and talk and cooperate with us, the national salvation government,” Mohamed al-Ghirani, foreign minister in the government based in the capital Tripoli, said in his office overlooking the Mediterranean.
“If Europe doesn’t cooperate, then after some years Europe will be completely black. Europe will change from a white Europe to an African Europe,” he said.
Chaos and civil war since Nato warplanes helped topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 have turned the North African country into the launching point for human traffickers smuggling tens of thousands of people across the Mediterranean.
Libya’s rulers have rounded up thousands of Europe-bound African migrants in detention centres. But officials say they have no room to hold the migrants, no way of fighting smugglers and no hope of guarding vast desert frontiers to prevent thousands more people trying to reach the sea. The lack of any unified authority in Libya has prevented virtually all international cooperation to respond to the migration crisis. An EU team helping to train and advise Libyan border guards evacuated the country.
Nearly all European countries have withdrawn their embassies from Tripoli and refuse to recognise Ghirani’s government, which took control of the capital in heavy fighting last year. Instead, they recognise a rump government now based in the east. Ghirani insists all efforts to save migrants are pointless unless Europe began cooperating with his government’s forces on the ground.“Now we cannot do anything. The state is weak,” he said. “We need logistics, intelligence, aircraft.”