Tuesday, April 14, 2020
The Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue condemned Turkey’s obstruction of efforts to combat Corona in Libya, saying in a statement Tuesday that there information indicating that the Turkish government and armed militias allied with the Government of Reconciliation in western Libya deliberately blocked any efforts to combat the spread of the Corona virus among Libyans.
The Forum referred to the statements of Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, who stressed the targeting of Turkish drones of a cargo plane loaded with medical supplies to cope with the Corona epidemic while landing in the city of Tarhuna, stressing that the shipment was to equip many hospitals to face the emerging Corona epidemic in the western regions of the country, as part of the efforts announced by the Libyan National Army to fight the virus after the first infection appeared on Libyan territory last March, which is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and all international norms and conventions.
At the same time, armed militias allied with the Government of Reconciliation attacked a control room in Al-Shuweirf in western Libya, cutting off water to more than two million people in Tripoli and nearby towns and cities.
Electricity has also been cut off repeatedly from Tripoli and some other areas over the past week, causing significant damage to precautionary measures, mainly domestic insulation applied in most countries of the world, as instructed by the World Health Organization, including Libya.
Libya’s humanitarian coordinator to the United Nations, Yacoub al-Helou, said more than 2 million people, including 600,000 children, in Tripoli and surrounding cities had suffered water outages nearly a week ago, noting that water supplies, part of the industrial river, by armed groups, called for an end to such acts aimed at collectively punishing millions of innocent people, stressing the seriousness of these crimes as Libya fights the “Covid 19” pandemic, where access to water and electricity is more life-saving than ever before.
The Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue Foundation called upon the international community to intervene to stop and condemn these criminal practices and help the Libyan people in their fight against the deadly virus.
