Air strike kills seven workers in Tripoli - Libyan officials

An air strike slammed into a biscuit factory in Tripoli on Monday, killing at least five foreign nationals and two Libyans, health authorities said.

Tripoli, the capital, has been the scene of fighting since April between the self-styled Libyan National Army, led by warlord Khalifa Haftar, and an array of militias loosely allied with the UN-supported but weakened government which holds the capital.

The Tripoli-based health ministry said the air strike took place in the capital’s Wadi el Rabie neighbourhood, the south of the city centre where fighting has been raging for months.

Malek Merset, a spokesman with the ministry, told The Associated Press that the dead included five workers from Bangladesh and two Libyan nationals.

The air strike also wounded at least 15 foreign workers, mostly from Niger and Bangladesh, who were taken to nearby hospitals for urgent treatment.

Footage shared online showed wounded people with bandages and blood on their legs on stretchers before being taken by ambulances to hospitals.

Fighting for Tripoli has stalled in recent months, with both sides dug in and shelling one another along the city’s southern reaches. Months of combat have killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands.

The fighting threatens to plunge Libya into another bout of violence on the scale of the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Libya has been divided into rival governments, with Tripoli controlling parts of the country’s west, and a rival government in the east aligned with Haftar’s force. 

Each side is backed by an array of militias and armed groups fighting over resources and territory.