At least 44 people including a Nepali citizen were killed in the airstrikes that hit a Libyan migrant detention centre in Libya’s capital Tripoli, on Wednesday.

The Embassy of Nepal, in Egypt’s capital city, Cairo has identified the deceased as 26-year-old Santosh Shrestha. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for Libya, Shrestha was declared dead upon arrival at a hospital. The embassy is trying to gather further information about the deceased.

Debris covers the ground after an airstrike at a detention center in Tajoura, east of Tripoli in Libya, Wednesday, July 3, 2019. An airstrike hit the detention center for migrants early Wednesday, killing several. Photo: AP

The air raid, involving two missiles, occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning and left the detention centre a charred ruin. The detention centre in the east of Tripoli was housing more than 610 people where 44 were killed and 130 severely injured when it was hit by two airstrikes.The death toll, which includes many women and children, represents one of the largest single losses of civilian life since the civil war in 2011.

The embassy said eight other Nepali nationals stranded in Libya were rescued and sent to Nepal via Turkey on Wednesday while the preparation is ongoing to send six other Nepalis in the Tripoli-based IOM camp to Nepal at the earliest.In the past two months, including the above eight, 34 Nepalis have been rescued and sent back to Nepal.

It has been reported that most of the Nepalis in the detention centre were brought to Libya by the human traffickers who intended to send them to Italy from Libya.Meanwhile, the Nepali peacekeeping mission in Libya is cooperating and coordinating on the matters related to Nepali migrants, the embassy said.

Published on: 4 July 2019 | The Himalayan Times