UNITED NATIONS, September 25 (RIA Novosti) - Libya faces major humanitarian problems following months of “unprecedented violence”, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday.
“Libya is in deep crisis. The past months have seen unprecedented violence between rival armed formations,” the UN leader said at a high-level meeting on Libya on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly debate.
Over 300,000 Libyans are displaced and infrastructure is destroyed as a result of the violence, Ban said, adding that “the legitimately elected legislature, the House of Representatives, has been forced to base itself in Tobruk, and a number of its members have boycotted its proceedings.”
Nearly all UN staff has left the country, Ban stated. "The challenges facing Libya are compounded by the fact that most international missions, including UNSMIL, have had to temporarily evacuate from the country," he said.
“Nevertheless, Special Representative Mr. Bernardino Leon continues to shuttle between the parties in Libya to promote dialogue as the only way out of the crisis,” Ban added.
On September 15, the Secretary General’s envoy to Libya Bernardino Leon, who previously held the same position for the European Union, told the UN Security Council that “our engagement will remain solidly anchored in the principles of unbiased engagement with all parties, and that of non-intervention in Libya's internal affairs and respect for its national sovereignty.”
Since NATO's bombing campaign and the overthrow of the Gaddafi government in 2011, “efforts aimed at resolving the current crisis and resuming the political process cannot make progress against the background of continued fighting,” Leon then said.
Now, Ban stated that “the crisis is also threatening the region and beyond through illegal weapons flows and increasing pockets of lawlessness and extremism.”
“Let us work to encourage all parties to forge consensus in a spirit of inclusiveness and reconciliation,” the UN leader concluded.
Libya is currently facing its worst wave of violence since the 2011 overthrow and the subsequent civil war. After the conflict, the country has seen violent clashes between numerous militias, armed with weapons seized from Gaddafi government ammunition depots. According to the Libya Body Count data, more than 1,100 people have been killed in 2014.
