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UN: Death Toll from Libya Fighting Surpasses 1,000

The ongoing battle between armed groups for the Libyan capital Tripoli has killed more than 1,000 people since it began in April, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that 1,048 people had been killed since the offensive began, 106 of whom were civilians. Another 5,558 were wounded, including 289 civilians. Thousands of African migrants are in detention centers near the front lines, a fact highlighted by an airstrike on one such facility last week that killed more than 50 people. Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, control of Libya has been split between the UN-backed, Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and supported by Qatar and Turkey, and the Benghazi-based renegade general Khalifa Haftar, supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. In recent months, Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) has swept south and west, taking oil fields and threatening Sarraj’s hold on the capital.