Anti-Gaddafi fighters tightened their siege of the ousted leader’s hometown of Sirte yesterday as civilians poured out of the Mediterranean coastal city where doctors spoke of a growing crisis.
Fighters loyal to Libya’s new government also pounded Colonel Gaddafi’s forces in the desert city of Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli, as they sought to take the last two significant remaining bastions of his loyalists.
National Transitional Council (NTC) troops advancing from the east said they had pushed 10 kilometres inside Sirte city limits but were still 15 kilometres from the centre of the sprawling city.
Hundreds of fearful residents fled the looming offensive to retake Sirte, arriving at NTC checkpoints on the front lines both east and west.
“The situation in the city is very critical,” said Muftah Mohammed, leaving in a convoy of seven vehicles.
“There is no food, no water, no petrol and no electricity. This has been going on for nearly two months now as Gaddafi forces would not allow us to leave. Children are in a particularly bad condition.”
The collapse of the mains supply has left residents without access to clean drinking water, triggering an epidemic of water-borne diseases.
An AFP correspondent saw dozens of children receiving treatment at a clinic in the town of Harawa, 40 kilometres east of Sirte.
“We have medicines but no nurses to treat the constant flow of patients, mainly children, suffering from vomiting and gastrointestinal diseases,” said Dr Valentina Rybakova, a Ukrainian working in Libya for eight years.
“Since morning I saw nearly 120 patients and 70 per cent of them were children. They are coming from some outskirts of Sirte and nearby villages,” she said.
“This is a big humanitarian crisis. We are trying to get help from everybody but the main problem is that these people have no access to clean drinking water.”
In Geneva, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya Panos Moumtzis said the UN is expected to end its emergency humanitarian operations in Libya at the end of November.
“We hope the country will be in a new phase” by then, Mr Moumtzis said, adding that at that point Libya would need “technical” assistance.
Meanwhile NTC number two Mahmud Jibril, the interim premier, told the UN Security Council yesterday Col Gaddafi is a growing international terrorist threat.
“The simple fact that he is free and has at his disposal such wealth means that he is still able to destabilise the situation not only within my country but also in the Sahel and Sahara region,” Mr Jibril told the council.
He said that even outside Africa, Col Gaddafi “could return to his terrorist practices by providing arms” to militant groups.
Nato said yesterday its aircraft had hit a command and control node, three ammunition or vehicle storage facilities, a radar facility, a multiple rocket launcher, a military support vehicle and an artillery piece in Sirte.
However, Britain said it has agreed with the alliance to withdraw the five Apache helicopters it has in service over Libya, in a major sign the NATO air mission is winding down.
There have been repeated reports that one of Col Gaddafi’s sons – Mutassim – is holed up in Sirte’s southern outskirts.
NTC forces believe Col Gaddafi’s most prominent son, Seif al-Islam, is in the other major enclave still in the hands of loyalist forces, the desert city of Bani Walid.
Troops massed at Bani Walid’s northern gates pounded Gaddafi positions with artillery, tanks and anti-aircraft guns yesterday.
“We are facing heavy resistance, that’s why we are using the heavy artillery and not sending in any infantry for now,” Commander Mohamed al-Seddiq said.