Thursday, 7 January 2016

Bomb kills dozens at Libyan police training centre

Dozens of people have been killed in an apparent suicide bombing at a police training centre in the western Libyan town of Zliten.
The bomb was on board a fuel tanker, which was driven into a large group of coastguard and police cadets gathering for their morning assembly, according to the Libya Herald.
A Zliten hospital spokesman told Associated Press that 60 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage, though Fozi Awnais, from the health ministry in Tripoli, later said 47 people had died and 118 more were injured.
Many of the injured, including those with shrapnel wounds, were taken to hospitals in nearby Misrata, as appeals were made for blood donations.
It is one of the deadliest attacks since Islamist militants started gaining ground following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The Facebook page of Misrata Central hospital named four of the victims and said it was treating 75 people injured in the blast.
Libya has been riven by instability since the overthrow of Gaddafi. The country has had rival administrations since August 2014, when an alliance of Islamist-backed militias overran the capital, Tripoli, forcing the government to take refuge in the east.
The UN is pressing both sides to accept a power-sharing agreement it hopes will help reverse gains made by Islamic State, who have taken over the city of Sirte and launched attacks on oilfields.
On 17 December, under UN guidance, envoys from both sides as well as a number of independent political figures signed an as yet unimplemented deal for a unity government.

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