Tripoli government admits failure to protect demonstrators from armed militia
The Tripoli government has acknowledged its inability to protect the protesters from the armed militia that shot at them and has tried to hold them back during the protests against corruption and the deterioration of the economy that took place this week in Martyrs' Square, according to the Al-Ain News newspaper. The GNA's interior minister, Ali Bashgha, has explained that they have already identified those responsible for the shootings and will try to protect civilians, according to a statement issued by Al-Ain News. Al-Arabiya TV has revealed that those who have harassed the demonstrators are part of the Turkish-backed Al-Nawasi militia.
This group took control of Martyrs Square on Thursday and expelled the demonstrators who had gathered in this area. Four demonstrators were injured, according to the sources consulted by Al-Ain News. The militias surrounded them, shot at them to disperse them and tried to hold back some of them. The Libyan Human Rights Organisation has demanded the government of Fayez Sarraj, leader of the Tripoli-based GNA, to stop using force against peaceful protesters and urged it to respect the right to demonstrate and freedom of expression.
Bashgha has blamed the harassment of protesters on Tripoli's armed militia, which he has accused of corruption, influence peddling, extortion, conspiracy against the Interior Ministry and the intelligence apparatus. He has even threatened to prosecute them. During his appearance on Sunday, Bashgha made a special charge against the Nawasi Militia, one of the biggest in Tripoli, comprising over 700 people and operating in the Abuasta area of the Libyan capital, a few metres from the Abuasta naval base, where the headquarters of the GNA are located. According to Al-Ain News, this armed group has taken over several checkpoints and patrols in the Abu Shata area of Tripoli, making it a major player on the capital's political and military scene.
On Sunday evening, the first protests in the city since 2015 broke out, according to reports on the Arabic version of the Al-Arabiya channel. Hundreds of Libyans took to the streets of Tripoli to denounce the tremendous deterioration in their living conditions as a result of an armed conflict that seems to have no end. Hundreds of people have demonstrated under the slogan "Revolution of the poor" in Tripoli. The impact of these mobilisations has motivated the citizens of Al-Zawiya and Mistata to join these protests, according to Al-Ain News.
The power cuts in this part of the country can last up to 10 hours a day, unemployment is soaring, the youth see no future beyond emigration, and the banks have no liquidity. As a way of rejecting the public leaders because of this situation, the demonstrators have left and broken images of members of the GNA, including those of Sarraj and Ahmad Mitig, vice-president of the Libyan Presidential Council.