Heavy firefights were underway around 1300 GMT in the east of the city, near the Tripoli University campus and the Tripoli Medical Center (TMC), where many people sought refuge from the violence, according to Libyan media and AFP journalists.
Sowing panic in busy streets and gardens during scorching summer nights, fighting erupted shortly after midnight on Thursday, the eve of the weekend (Friday-Saturday) in Libya, between two influential armed groups in western Libya : the al-Radaa Force (deterrence) and the Revolutionary Brigade of Tripoli.
The clashes of the night left "13 dead, including three civilians including an 11-year-old child, and 30 injured", according to the Ambulance and Rescue Service in Tripoli, quoted by the Libya al-Ahrar television channel.
Another brigade called "444" intervened on Friday to mediate, positioning its armed vehicles on the roundabout of Fornaj (in eastern Tripoli), before being itself targeted by intense fire, noted an AFP photographer.
Images and videos posted on social networks show dozens of vehicles, doors open in the middle of the streets, abandoned by their drivers to take shelter.
Previous clashes between militias dated from June 10 and resulted in the death of a militiaman, but it had been years since there had been any civilian casualties in the capital.
- "Terrified" -
"We spent the night in the basement, our children are still terrified," Mokhtar al-Mahmoudi, a father living in the Fornaj district, told AFP.
Many party rooms are located in the area of clashes. Hundreds of women, who attended weddings, found themselves trapped in the middle of the fighting, unable to return home. The paramedics came to their aid by evacuating them to the TMC and safe areas.
"If the ambulance hadn't come so that we could get out of the room, I don't know what would have happened to my sisters and me," Mayssa Ben Issa, who attended the wedding, told AFP. from a cousin on Thursday evening.
Malek al-Badri, 27, used his GPS navigator to avoid the main avenues and take alleys to pick up his mother. “Without Google Maps, I would have gotten lost and God knows where I was going to end up in the middle of the night,” he says. For the young man, "Tripoli will not find peace in the presence of these armed groups".
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (Manul), "deeply concerned", called on "all Libyans to do their utmost to preserve the country's fragile stability at this sensitive time", to "show restraint" and to "resolve their differences through dialogue".
"Any act that puts the lives of civilians in danger is unacceptable," she said in a statement, calling for "the opening of an investigation" to bring justice to the families of the victims.
Libyan Airlines flights from Cairo and al-Alamia (Global Air) from Benghazi, which were to land at Mitiga airport, not far from the clashes, were diverted to Misrata, 200 km to the east. east of Tripoli.
On Friday, the management of Mitiga airport, the only one serving the capital and located a few kilometers from the combat zone, suspended air traffic until further notice and allowed airlines to evacuate their stranded aircraft. on the tarmac of Mitiga towards Misrata.
These clashes are symptomatic of the chaos to which Libya has been plagued since the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and from which it has not managed to extricate itself. The security situation in the North African country remains very precarious, with recurring tensions between armed groups in the West.
Two governments have been vying for power since March. That of Tripoli, which was put into orbit in early 2021 under the aegis of the UN to lead the transition until elections, and a government formed in March and supported by Parliament, which has temporarily taken up residence in Sirte, for lack of to be able to take office in the capital.
