ISRAEL BEGINS DEMOLITION OF PALESTINIAN HOMES IN EAST JERUSALEM

SUR BAHER, West Bank (Reuters)

Israeli forces began demolishing buildings near a military barrier on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday, in the face of Palestinian protests and international criticism.

Bulldozers accompanied by hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police moved in to Sur Baher, a Palestinian village on the edge of East Jerusalem in an area that Israel captured and occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.

Palestinians fear that the razing of homes and buildings near the fence will set a precedent for other towns along the route of the barrier, which runs for hundreds of kilometers around and through the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The demolition is the latest round of protracted wrangling over the future of Jerusalem, home to more than 500,000 Israelis and 300,000 Palestinians, and sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

Israeli forces cut through a wire section of the barrier in Sur Baher under cover of darkness early on Monday, and began clearing residents from the area.

Floodlights lit up the area as dozens of vehicles brought helmeted security forces into the village.

After first light, mechanical diggers began destroying a two-storey house as soldiers moved through several floors of a partly constructed multi-storey building nearby.

“Since 2 a.m. they have been evacuating people from their homes by force and they have started planting explosives in the homes they want to destroy,” said Hamada Hamada, a community leader in Sur Baher.

Journalists and Palestinian demonstrators run away from tear gas canisters fired by Israeli forces during a protest against Israeli plans to demolish Palestinian homes, in the Palestinian village of Sur Baher which sits on either side of the barrier in East Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. 

The work was filmed and photographed by Palestinian, Israeli and international activists who had mobilized to try and stop the demolition.

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in June that the structures violated a construction ban. The deadline for residents to remove the affected buildings, or parts of them, expired on Friday.

Some Sur Baher residents said they would be made homeless. Owners said they had obtained permission to build from the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The sprawling village of Sur Baher straddles the line between East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Its political geography is complicated by the fact that parts of it lie outside the municipal boundaries of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem but on the Israeli side of the barrier, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank.

Palestinian officials say some of the threatened structures lie within areas that they should control. The Palestine Liberation Organization issued a statement accusing the Israeli court of aiming “to set a precedent to enable the Israeli occupying forces to demolish numerous Palestinian buildings located in close proximity” to the barrier.

Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator, and other U.N. officials called on the Israeli authorities last week to halt the demolition plans. They said 17 Palestinians faced displacement from the plans to level 10 buildings, including dozens of apartments.

The European Union issued a statement saying: “The continuation of this policy undermines the viability of the two-state solution and the prospect for a lasting peace.”

However, the Israeli Supreme Court’s 3-judge panel ruled unanimously in favor of demolition. “The petitioners took the law into their own hands when they began and continued building structures without receiving a special permit from the military commander,” it said.

The court said construction close to the barrier could provide cover for attackers.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on Monday, but a statement last week by Israel’s military-run civil administration in the West Bank said enforcement would be pursuant to “operational considerations” and “state policy.”

In some built-up areas the barrier is a high concrete wall, but in Sur Baher and much of the West Bank it consists of two wire fences separated by a military patrol road and protected by watchtowers and electronic sensors.

Israel credits the obstacle - projected to be 720 km (450 miles) long when complete — with stemming Palestinian suicide bombings and shooting attacks. Palestinians call it a land grab designed to annex parts of the West Bank, including Israeli settlements.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion in 2004 that building the barrier on occupied territory was “contrary to international law.”

Israel dismissed the non-binding decision as politically motivated and says the barrier played a key role in drastically reducing the number of attacks, which peaked in 2002 and 2003 during the Second Palestinian uprising known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

MEDIA GROUPS SEEK ANSWERS OVER MISSING TANZANIAN REPORTER

By Aljazeera

Press freedom groups have demanded answers from the Tanzanian government following contradicting statements by the country's foreign minister about the fate of a journalist who vanished two years ago.  

Activists have accused President John Magufuli's government of cracking down on press freedom

In an interview with the BBC earlier this week, Palamagamba Kabudi, the minister, said reporter Azory Gwanda had "disappeared and died" somewhere in Rufiji, eastern Tanzania, without offering additional details. 

The announcement was blasted by media watchdogs and activists who have long been calling for transparency in the case, prompting apparent backtracking by Kabudi on Thursday.

"The reference I made on Azory Gwanda contextually did not mean that Azory Gwanda is confirmed dead. To date, the government of Tanzania has no confirmation on whether Azory is dead or alive," a government statement quoted Kabudi as saying.

In a statement on Thursday, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) criticised Kabudi's "casual reference" and accused the government "of displaying a lack of consideration in its handling of the case".

"After a year and a half of silence and then downplaying the journalist's disappearance, the minister announces his death without explanation," RSF's Africa representative, Arnaud Froger, told AFP news agency.

"The flippancy with which the Tanzanian authorities have handled this case illustrates the low regard they have for the safe exercise of free and independent journalism."

The United States-based Committee to Protect Journalists, meanwhile, called the minister's remarks "wholly inadequate and distressing" and urged the government to immediately make public all the information it has about Gwanda's fate.

Gwanda, a reporter for the Mwananchi and The Citizen newspapers, disappeared while reportedly investigating a series of murders of police and local officials in Kibiti, in the Rufiji district of the Pwani region.

According to his wife, Gwanda disappeared on November 21, 2017, after leaving in a white Toyota Land Cruiser with unknown people on an "emergency trip".

He promised to return the following evening but was never seen again.

The government of President John Magufuli has been roundly criticized by press-freedom groups and local rights organisations for attempting to stifle media freedom in Tanzania.

The government denies the allegations.

Last year, 65 civil-society organisations wrote 

DANGOTE PROMISES NIGERIA BIG GOAL BONUS

Cairo, EGYPT

Nigeria's footballers are in line for a minimum $75,000 windfall if they score against Algeria in Sunday's Africa Cup of Nations semi-final in Cairo.

The continent’s richest man Aliko Dangote (pictured) has promised to pay the Super Eagles $50,000 for each goal they score against the Algerians.

According to Amaju Pinnick, President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Nigerian oil mogul Femi Otedola has also promised to reward the team with $25,000 for every goal beginning from the encounter with Algeria.

Several other wealthy Nigerians have showered the Eagles with huge cash donations after they reached the last four of the tournament.

Officials said that each player has so far received at least $72,000 in bonuses and donations.

The team received cash gifts and plots of land from the Nigerian government when they won the competition for the third time in South Africa in 2013.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has urged the Eagles to remain focused in order to win the tournament for a fourth time.

"MISSING TANZANIA JOURNALIST IS DEAD" - GOVERNMENT

Azory Gwanda who is said to be dead

Nairobi, KENYA

The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Tanzanian government to provide a detailed public account of the fate of freelance journalist Azory Gwanda after the country's foreign minister, Palamagamba Kabudi, said in an interview that the journalist is dead.

In an interview with the BBC's "Focus on Africa" program today, Kabudi said that Gwanda had "disappeared and died" in the country's eastern Rufiji region, and said that the government has since "been able to contain that kind of extremism" in the region.

Gwanda went missing on November 21, 2017, after investigating mysterious killings and disappearances in his community, and the Tanzanian government has never delivered a promised investigation into his case, according to CPJ research.

Tanzania foreign minister, Palamagamba Kabudi

"For a year and a half, Azory Gwanda's family and the Tanzanian media have pleaded with the government to explain what happened to their loved one and colleague," said CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney from New York. "Then suddenly the foreign minister mentions, almost in passing, that the journalist is apparently dead. This is wholly inadequate and distressing. The government must immediately share publicly all information it has about Gwanda's fate."

Kabudi told the BBC that the Tanzanian government is not "proud" of the disappearances and killings in Rufiji, which he said also took the lives of police officers and ruling party officials, and said that the government was taking measures to make sure that citizens and journalists are safe. However, CPJ research shows that impunity in journalists' deaths or disappearances contributes to an environment that fosters violence against journalists.

CPJ's phone calls today to Kabudi and Tanzanian government spokesperson Hassan Abbass went unanswered.

TANZANIA WOMEN URGED TO "SET OVARIES FREE" TO BOOST ECONOMY

Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA

Tanzania’s President, John Magufuli, urged the country’s women to “set your ovaries free” and bear more children as a way to help boost the economy into a regional powerhouse, a step critics said would instead worsen inequality and poverty.

“When you have a big population you build the economy. That’s why China’s economy is so huge,” he said late on Tuesday, citing India and Nigeria as other examples of countries that gained from a demographic dividend.

 “I know that those who like to block ovaries will complain about my remarks. Set your ovaries free, let them block theirs,” he told a gathering in his home town of Chato.

Since taking office in 2015, Magufuli has launched an industrialization campaign that has helped buoy economic growth, which has averaged 6-7% annually in recent years. But he has said a higher birth rate would achieve faster progress.

Tanzania has sustained relatively high growth, averaging 6–7 percent a year, over the past decade. At the same time, the East African nation of 55 million people already has one of the world’s highest birth rates - around 5 children per woman.

Data from the United Nations population fund UNFPA shows Tanzania’s population is growing by about 2.7 percent a year while most public hospitals and schools are overcrowded and many young people lack jobs.

UNFPA says about a third of married women in Tanzania use contraceptives, but Magufuli has criticized Western-backed family planning programmes implemented by the health ministry.

Last year Magufuli said curbing the birth rate was “for those too lazy to take care of their children”, and the health ministry barred broadcasting of family planning ads by a U.S.-funded project. 

While Tanzania’s poverty rate - people living on less than $1 a day - has declined to about 26% as of 2016, the absolute number of poor citizens has not because of the high population growth rate, according to the World Bank.

President Magufuli waving to some Game Ranger officers on the event

Opposition leaders in Tanzania have criticized Magufuli’s stance, saying the country’s already rapid population growth is a time bomb, and disapproving remarks surfaced on social media.

“As a modern woman I can’t believe this ... especially coming from him (the president),” said one Twitter user.

Others said it was simply bad economics for Magufuli to urge Tanzanians to have more babies.

“High population growth in Tanzania means increased levels of poverty and income inequality,” said a rights activist based in Dar es Salaam who asked not to be named to avoid possible repercussions from the government’s ongoing review of registration of non-governmental organisations. “Women’s ovaries should never be used as a tool for seeking economic prosperity.” - Reuters

WHO: MORE THAN 1 000 KILLED IN BATTLE FOR LIBYA'S TRIPOLI

Geneva, SWISS
The battle between rival groups for the Libyan capital has killed more than 1 000 people since it began in April, the United Nations said, a grim milestone in a stalemated conflict partly fueled by regional powers.

This picture taken on April 12, 2019 shows a smoke plume rising from an air strike behind a tank belonging to forces loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA), during clashes near Tripoli. (AFP Photo)

The World Health Organization said in a brief statement on Tuesday that 1 048 people have been killed since the offensive began, including 106 civilians. It said 5,558 were wounded, including 289 civilians.

"WHO continues to send doctors and medical supplies to help hospitals cope. Our teams have performed more than 1 700 surgeries in three months," the UN body said on Twitter.

Forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, a renegade military commander, launched an offensive on Tripoli in early April, advancing on the city's southern outskirts to wrestle the capital from forces loyal to the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).

Haftar's Libyan National Army, which holds eastern Libya and much of the country's south, enjoys the support of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia.

But it has faced stiff resistance from fighters aligned with the UN-recognized government, which is aided by Turkey and Qatar.

The battle lines have changed little since the offensive began, with both sides dug in and shelling one another in the southern reaches of the capital.

Forces aligned with the GNA recently recaptured Gharyan, a town 100km west of Tripoli, which is on a major supply route.

Fighting has emptied entire neighborhoods of civilians.

Thousands of African migrants captured by Libyan forces funded and trained by the European Union are trapped in detention centers near the front lines.

An air raid on one facility last week killed more than 50 people, mainly migrants held in a hangar that collapsed on top of them.

Libya slid into chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed long-ruling dictator Moammar Gaddafi.

Armed groups have proliferated and the country emerged as a major transit point for refugees and migrants fleeing war and poverty for a better life in Europe.

Haftar's supporters say he is the only leader who can end militia rule, reunite the oil-rich country, and keep it from being a safe haven for "terrorists".

But his critics see him as an aspiring strongman, and his offensive appears to have at least temporarily united western Libya's fractious forces in opposition to a return of one-man rule.

On Friday, the UN Security Council called on the warring parties to commit to a ceasefire and seek a political solution following the air attack on the migrant detention centre. 

SENEGAL DREAMING FOR 2019 AFCON CHAMPIONSHIP

Cairo, EGYPT

Senegal national team boss Aliou Cisse said the surprise exit of hosts Egypt and Morocco and the elimination of defending champions Cameroon has fueled hopes of a first Africa Cup of Nations title.

Senegal national team boss Aliou Cisse

Cisse was captain of the team that reached the 2002 final, losing to Cameroon on penalties, and is now coach of a strong side featuring Liverpool star Sadio Mane and Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly.

"It's true that Cameroon are not here, the big favourites are no longer here today. Of course that gives us ideas and it gives us even more confidence to say yes, maybe this year will be the one," Cisse said on Tuesday.

"But like I said, that's just hope and it won't be enough. We'll have to work very hard, we'll have to be serious, and that is what we're doing."

However, Cisse warned Senegal would pay the price for looking any further than Wednesday's quarterfinal with Benin in Cairo.

Michel Dussuyer's side have, remarkably, progressed to the last eight in Egypt for the first time despite not winning a single game.

But after advancing in third place following three draws in a group that included both Cameroon and Ghana, Benin survived a missed Hakim Ziyech spot-kick in stoppage time before beating Herve Renard's Morocco in a penalty shootout in the last 16.

"As for Benin, I'll say it again and again, for the past four years I have been here trying to convince you that there are no small teams on the African continent anymore," said Cisse.

"And I believe that this Afcon has shown that again, that winning in Africa is difficult, winning in Africa is complicated and wrong are those teams who think that a match is already settled."

PRESIDENT MUSEVENI GIVES UGANDA CRANES SH3.7 BILLION REWARD

Entebbe, Uganda

Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, has given Uganda Cranes a sh3.7 billion ($1million) reward for their performance at the ongoing Africa Nations Cup finals.

The team returned yesterday from Cairo, where they were knocked out at the Last-16 stage by Senegal. This is the first time the team gets to the knock-out stage since 1978.

President Museveni congratulated the team, saying they had achieved a lot despite dropping off in the knockout stages. He emphasized the importance of sports, saying that in addition to entertaining and improving one’s health, it also generates income and builds one’s character.

He also noted the limited budgetary support to sports by government, saying the country is still struggling with basics like security, public infrastructure, roads, electricity and piped water.

Museveni promised more support for sports when the resources allow.

Moses Magogo, the President Federation of Uganda Football Association-FUFA thanked the president for the support he gave to the team.   He also said he was proud of the team since they were in position to reach the knock out stages.

Magogo noted that the players put in a lot since a lot of teams including giants dropped out in the initial stages.

THE AFRICAN: TOM MBOYA

By Osoro Nyawangah

July 1969 was a month when Kenyan history changed forever. For much of humanity, eyes were firmly fixed on the skies. Far above them, for eight days starting on the 16th, three men left the bounds of earth, on their way to set foot on the surface of the moon.

In Kenya, though, eyes and thoughts were not cast skywards. Ten days before the moon landing, all attention was on a little patch of ground on a small island on Lake Victoria, the Rusinga Island.

On July 10, 1969, Tom Mboya was buried on Island. Five days before that, on a Saturday afternoon in Nairobi, Tom Mboya had walked into a chemist’s shop. He had bought a bottle of lotion and chatted to the Chhanis, the proprietors of the pharmacy. He had then stepped out, straight into a gunman who fired two bullets into him. Mboya was dead within the hour.

The alleged killer a certain Nahashon Njenga Njoroge was hastily hanged at Kamiti Prisons bringing the investigations to an end without answers to the most important questions. Before he died, Njenga said “Why don’t you go after the big man?”

So who was the big man who put a hit on Tom Mboya? Thanks to Lee Njiru, a former Press Secretary to both Kenyatta and Moi, we now have some fresh details about Mboya’s relationship with Mzee Kenyatta.

According to Njiru, Mzee Kenyatta liked Tom Mboya because he was a workhorse and an intellectual, but Kikuyus did not like him because he was too clever. People did not like the idea that the young man from Luo Nyanza was going to succeed Kenyatta.

But Mboya had irked a few Kikuyu Mafias during a conference in Canada a few years before Kenyatta’s release:

“Before Kenyatta left detention, one time Mboya had gone to Canada, and when asked: “Who will be Kenya’s President?” He said: “Kenyans will decide.” The Kikuyus noted that. They did not want any grey area, the answer should be, “It is Kenyatta.” People thought Mboya would succeed”

Lee Njiru also says that tribalism was ripe in post-independence Kenya and people from Mt. Kenya had been brainwashed and told that there was no way leadership would go to Western Kenya.

“You know there was that divide that leadership must stay within Mt Kenya region. So as young people, you know, we had been brainwashed that a Luo should not lead this country. And you know there is that narrative even up to now.”

With his murder, Kenya was shaken as it had never been before, and hasn’t since. A certain innocence was shattered. There had been political murder before — Pio Gama Pinto had been shot dead four-and-a-half years before. 

The late Cabinet Minister Tom Mboya with school children. 

But Mboya’s killing shifted something fundamental in the Kenyan political firmament. Before July 5, 1969, one could console oneself about the possibilities of reconciliation among a not-quite-fully-formed Kenyan political elite.

After July 5, 1969, all myths were shattered. Whoever ordered the killing — and until today this mystery has never been solved conclusively — had decided that they were no longer taking chances on the succession of a president who was suddenly showing his mortality. Jomo Kenyatta had been stricken the previous year.

Mboya’s biography, written a decade after his murder, is subtitled The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget. It is an apt title. Mboya is now, in the public imagination, merely a street and a monument. What is perceived as his memory is perhaps a misremembering.

Who, then, was Thomas Joseph Odhiambo Mboya? Why was it said of him that his death was when Kenya’s train came off the rails? Why, 50 years later, must we cast a gaze back with great interest?

A file image of Kenya's founding President Jomo Kenyatta and his Economic Planning Minister Tom Mboya.

Mboya was a young man in a hurry. Even as he jostled politically with his cohort as Kenya came to independence and after, he stood head and shoulders above them.

His politics was essentially forward-looking. He had used his positions of leadership in the labour movement to forge strong links within Africa and beyond, giving him access to powerful networks, significant amounts of financial resources, and an international profile that put him right at the forefront of global affairs.

He was on the cover of Time in March 1960, when getting on the cover of that magazine was a significant achievement. He was getting these international accolades more than three years before Kenya’s independence. He was Kenya’s foremost spokesperson on the international scene, leaving one with a lingering sense of loss and of what might have been.

In Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget, David Goldsworthy outlines how nervous Mboya was becoming in the months and years before July 1969. While he had engineered Kanu to position himself to take over (he was Secretary-General), the enemies were circling. He was beginning to be regarded as an interloper by the ethnic Praetorian Guard forming around Kenyatta.

They allowed for a Joseph Murumbi, who served a hapless seven months as Vice President because he was seen as a harmless dreamer. They allowed for a Daniel Moi because he was an even safer choice, seen as controllable by the far more urbane group around the President.

Mboya, however, was none of this. He was ambitious and well-connected. He did, too often for his own good, show an element of arrogance and disdain for the parochial and the small-minded.

At the same time, he was no longer trusted by the nascent opposition.

The reason the vice presidency was serially vacant was because Kenyatta had decisively broken with his erstwhile ally, Oginga Odinga.

But because Mboya had been, unfairly or otherwise, seen as a stalking horse for the conservative Kikuyu elements around Kenyatta, and because he had so brilliantly outflanked Odinga and his allies, he was not acceptable to Odinga’s group. It was then conveniently remembered that he was not quite Luo, seeing as his Rusinga Island antecedents were actually Abasuba.

From this precarious position, trying to thread the needle on a nervous political stage, Mboya approached the 1969 elections knowing that matters were coming to a head. His enemies were confident that they could diminish him further. And he knew that it was not just political annihilation they were after. There was a distinct possibility of physical danger. He confided in letters (which he was so sure were being surreptitiously opened and read) that political forces in Kenya were bent on cutting him down to size before fate made the presidential contest an open one.

The obvious question then is why, if he was steadily losing influence, was Mboya important enough to kill? The reason, perhaps, lay in his character and political skill. He was by far the most talented politician and the best organiser in the country.

He could call upon resources that few had access to. At this time, no one knew how long Mzee was going to stay alive, and thus whatever plotting was going on was, in essence, happening in the dark. You could try and isolate Mboya, but you knew that you could not keep him down. The decision was thus to get rid of him, permanently.

What would have become of the man and his career had Mboya lived?

Would Mboya have stayed patiently biding his time as Kenya’s politics went through the sclerotic 70s — with rapacious personalities taking advantage of the infirmities at the top? Would he have participated in the intrigues and counter-intrigues of the middle of the decade, or would he have tired of these and sought to deploy his prodigious talents elsewhere? It is intriguing to imagine Mboya striding on the world stage, perhaps even as a UN secretary-general, and coming back to resume leadership in Kenya once the path was clear.

Let’s indulge in some further counterfactual, and assume the inevitability of a Mboya presidency. How would he have performed? Would he have patiently consolidated democracy in the young nation, with all the messiness and compromises necessary? Or would he have been impatient to carry out an ambitious economic and developmental programme, ruthlessly casting aside those who were incapable or insufficiently committed?

Of course, this would have depended on when he ascended. Had it been in the 1970s, a President Mboya would have had to deal with the oil shocks and economic slowdown. Would Kenya have avoided the paranoia and lost decades of the 1980s and 1990s? How would a former President Mboya have behaved as an elder statesman?

A creature of the global elite, traversing the world on missions large and small, or a homebound sage, dispensing political wisdom? Or would he have tired of the ceaseless decades of endless activity and retired quietly to an undisturbed dotage?

But counterfactual history is just that — the fertile imaginings of what could have been. What is that Kenya’s greatest political talent was murdered 50 years ago.

The man who designed Kenya’s flag, named Banki Kuu ya Kenya and founded Kanu, was shot dead on a July afternoon before he reached the full flowering of his colossal political, organisational and strategic power.

One fateful month. When humanity reached for the heavens. And Kenya snuffed out our brightest star.

LIBYA: AIR RAID KILLS 40 AT TRIPOLI MIGRANT DETENTION CENTRE

Tripoli, LIBYA

An air strike hit a detention center for mainly African migrants in a suburb of the Libyan capital of Tripoli late on Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 80, a health official said.

It was the highest publicly reported toll from an air strike or shelling since eastern forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive three months ago with ground troops and aircraft to take the capital, base of Libya’s internationally recognized government.

Libya is a main departure point for migrants from Africa fleeing poverty and war and trying to reach Italy by boat, but many are picked up and brought back by the Libyan coast guard, supported by the European Union.

Thousands are held in government-run detention centers in what human rights groups and the United Nations say are often inhuman conditions.

The UNHCR refugee agency had already called in May for the Tajoura center, which holds 600 people, to be evacuated after a projectile landed less than 100 meters away, injuring two migrants.

Photos published on Tuesday showed African migrants undergoing surgery in a hospital after the strike. Others lay on beds, some covered in dust or with bandaged limbs.

Malek Mersek, spokesman for a state emergency medical service, said 40 people had been killed and 80 wounded in the strike on the detention center, which stands next to a military camp.

The U.N. refugee agency said at least 30 migrants had died and dozens were injured, but that the death toll could rise. It could not confirm who had launched the attack.

Emergency workers recover bodies after an airstrike killed 40 and wounded 80 at Tajoura Detention Centre, east of Tripoli, Libya.

Tajoura, east of Tripoli’s center, is home to several camps belonging to forces allied to the internationally recognized government, which have been targeted by air strikes for weeks.

Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), allied to a parallel government based in eastern Libya, has seen its advance on Tripoli held up on the outskirts of the capital, and said it would start heavy air strikes after “traditional means” of war had been exhausted.

His attempt to capture Tripoli has derailed U.N. attempts to broker an end to the chaos that has prevailed in the oil- and gas-producing country since the violent NATO-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi tweeted that he had three messages concerning the detained migrants:

 “They must NOT be detained; civilians must NOT be a target; Libya is NOT a safe place of return. And of course, states with influence must cooperate to end conflict, rather than fuel it.”

In a statement, the Tripoli-based government blamed the “war criminal Khalifa Haftar” for the incident.

The chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, demanded an immediate ceasefire and an independent investigation “to ensure that those responsible for this horrific crime of innocent civilians be brought to account”.

An LNA official denied that his force had hit the detention center, saying that militias allied to Tripoli had shelled it after a precision air strike by the LNA on a military camp.

The LNA air campaign has failed to take Tripoli in three months of fighting, and last week lost its main forward base in Gharyan to Tripoli’s forces.

Both sides enjoy military support from regional powers. The LNA has been supplied for years by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, while Turkey recently shipped arms to Tripoli to stop Haftar’s assault, diplomats say.

The conflict threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, scupper U.N. plans for an election to end the rivalry between the parallel administrations in east and west - and create a security void that Islamist militants could fill. - Reuters