Libya: (Thousands Of) Mountain Villagers Facing "Starvation"

[Turborama]

Source: Channel 4 News (UK)

Channel 4 News speaks to a source in Libya who tells of the potential starvation of thousands in the Nafusa Mountain range due to Gaddafi forces blocking aid, medicine and water.

The western Nafusa Mountains of Libya, which run along the breadth of half the country to the Tunisian border and are home for hundreds of thousands of people, are dangerously cut off from aid and essential basic supplies, threatening a serious humanitarian crisis that has been getting a lot less attention than the situation in the beseiged port city of Misrata.

An anonymous source told Channel 4 News that the situation in the area has developed to a point where Libyan women, children and the elderly are suffering from potential starvation. As well as the growing difficulty in transporting supplies of food and water around the conflict-stricken country, it is being reported that Gaddafi troops are targeting aid lines to force rebels out of the mountain region that is the home of tribes that have long been anti-Gaddafi.

Channel 4 News spoke to a Libyan contact in the west of the country who has been helping to smuggle essential produce into the country: "The people are totally cut off in the mountains, very little medical equipment is getting up there. There are 16-18 villages being attacked by daily raids in tanks, some reports of shooting indiscriminately at houses and anything that moves, as well as historical monuments. It is chaos, shelling on a daily basis, ground missiles, rocket launchers."

In addition there have been reports that systematic shelling has been unleashed so close to the border that one Tunisian border guard has been killed and three others injured:

Read more: http://www.channel4.com/news/libya-mountain-villagers-facing-starvation

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