MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2019) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will further scale up its operation in Libya to help displaced people, ICRC President Peter Maurer told Sputnik in an interview.
"We are quite an important actor in responding in particular to the needs of the displaced populations. We have brought and have increased over the last couple of weeks our medical response. We have treated hundreds and thousands of people in and around Tripoli, which have been affected by the recent outburst of violence. So it is unquestioned that ICRC will try to do its best to scale [up] our operation in Libya further," Maurer said.
The ICRC president was referring to this year's escalation in the country divided between the west governed by the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and the east controlled by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA). In April, the LNA launched an offensive to retake Tripoli.
In addition to the internal conflict that has been plaguing Libya since 2011, the country has become a transit point for many migrants striving to cross the Mediterranean Sea and reach Europe.
