An air strike hit a detention centre for mainly African migrants in a suburb of the Libyan capital Tripoli late on Tuesday, killing at least 44 people and wounding more than 130, the United Nations said.
It was the highest publicly reported toll from an air strike or shelling since eastern forces under Khalifa Haftar launched a ground and aerial offensive three months ago to take Tripoli, the base of Libya’s internationally recognised government.
The conflict threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, scupper U.N. plans for an election and create a security void that Islamist militants could fill.
Haftar’s air force late on Wednesday attacked Tripoli’s only functioning airport, which is in the same area as the detention centre, causing its temporary closure to civilian traffic.
LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said the strike had destroyed a drones control room at the airport, which also has a military section.
United Nations Libya envoy Ghassan Salame condemned the strike, saying it “clearly amounts to the level of a war crime”.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was outraged by the air strike and called for an independent investigation, his spokesman said.
The U.N. Security Council met on Libya behind closed doors but diplomats said the United States prevented the 15-member body from issuing a statement condemning the incident and calling for a ceasefire. It was not immediately clear why Washington could not support the statement, diplomats said.
Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants fleeing poverty and war to try to reach Italy by boat, but many are picked up and brought back by the Libyan coast guard, supported by the European Union.
Some 6,000 are held in government-run detention centres in what human rights groups and the United Nations say are often inhuman conditions.
The UNHCR refugee agency had already called in May for the Tajoura centre, which holds 600 people, to be evacuated after a projectile landed less than 100 metres (330 feet) away, injuring two migrants.
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