Reuters/Benghazi, Libya
A weapon and bullets are seen as Libyan rebel fighters pray near the front line along the western entrance gate of Ajdabiyah yesterday
A chartered ship evacuated nearly 1,000 foreign workers and wounded Libyans from Misrata yesterday as rebels said they had gained ground in fighting with government forces in the besieged city.
“We wanted to be able to take more people out but it was not possible,” said Jeremy Haslam, who led the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) rescue mission.
“Although the exchange of fire subsided while we were boarding ... we had a very limited time to get the migrants and Libyans on board the ship and then leave.”
A rebel spokesman said four civilians were killed and five wounded by government shellfire which pounded Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city and the rebels’ main stronghold in the west of the country, for a fifth day yesterday.
But rebels also said they had gained ground in fighting on bitterly contested Tripoli Street, a key battleground in the city’s seven-week siege by forces loyal to President Muammar Gaddafi.
“The revolutionaries have made progress and are controlling some areas surrounding Tripoli Street, but danger is still there because (Gaddafi’s) snipers ... are now using (rocket-propelled grenades) RPGs and bombs,” Abdelsalam, a rebel spokesman in Misrata, said by telephone.
“It is clear Gaddafi wants to wipe out Misrata. Nato’s inaction is helping him carry out this plan. Are they waiting for a massacre to happen to realise that they need to change tactics?” Abdelsalam said.
“They need to realise that their large aircraft are no longer useful. Gaddafi changed tactics. This is urban warfare.”
Another rebel spokesman raised the death toll from shelling on Sunday to 25, mostly civilians, because several of the wounded had died, and said about 100 people had been wounded.
Evacuees say conditions in Misrata are becoming increasingly desperate. Hundreds of civilians are thought to have been killed.
The Ionian Spirit steamed out of Misrata carrying 971 people, most of them weak and dehydrated migrants mainly from Ghana, the Philippines and Ukraine, heading for the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya.
It was the second vessel chartered by the IOM, which took out nearly 1,200 migrants from Misrata last Friday.
Among the rescued group were 100 Libyans, including a child shot in the face, the IOM said in a statement. “...the migrants still in Misrata cannot survive much longer like this,” said IOM Middle East representative Pasquale Lupoli.