The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says nine of its citizens were among those killed in a double air strike on a detention centre outside Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
Deaths from the attack which was carried out on the hapless civilians late Tuesday, has been reviewed to 53 from 44.
More bodies are still being pulled out of the rubble, indicating that the body count has not stopped.
Worst still, the United Nations said in a new report on the war crime that guards fired on migrants trying to flee the site of the explosion.
BBC reports that the first missile landed in a garage beside the camp, while a second struck a hanger occupied by at list 120 European dream seekers.
Two of the migrants informed the British broadcaster that they were coerced to work for a local militia. At list 500 more stranded migrants are vulnerable to attacks according to the UN report.
“There are reports that following the first impact, some refugees and migrants were fired upon by guards as they tried to escape,” the UN report said.
“Humanitarian actors call for the immediate release of refugees and migrants from detention centres and for relocation to safe shelter,” the report added. Fathi Bashagha, Libya’s Minister of Interior, was quoted by the Libyan Observer, as saying that the government is considering closing all dentention centres.
While people smugglers try to get migrants who are mainly from Nigerian and other Subsaharan African countries, to Europe in crammed rubber boats, Libyan coast guards funded by the European Union, intercept these dingy inflatable contraptions and return them to detention camps. With funding from the EU bloc, Libyans found a new venture in setting up deportation camps.
Nigeria’s foreign affairs ministry which has no communications link, has failed to put out any press release or Tweet on the killings at press time— leaving the report by the BBC as its only mouthpiece.
Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj’s National Accord and War Lord Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan national Army, have blamed each other for the attack.
The Washignton Post in a piece published Thursday, noted that the militia the migrants were working for, was on the side of Al-Sarraj.
The combatants used the hanger adjacent to the camp house to store ammunitions, this would most likely have made it a target for the LNA.
