Credit:  By Gary Raynaldo /  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.  File photo. 

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC TIMES

UNITED NATIONS  –  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is calling for an independent investigation of Wednesday’s bombing of a detention center for migrants near Libya’s capital Tripoli that killed at least 40 migrants and refugees including women and children.  Guterres expressed outrage at reports of the bombing attack east of Tripoli.

“The Secretary-General calls for an independent investigation of the circumstances of this incident, to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice, noting that the United Nations had provided exact coordinates of the detention centre to the parties. The Secretary-General further reminds all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects, and to refrain from directing attacks against civilians.”

 -Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

I am outraged by reports that dozens of refugees and migrants, including women and children, have been killed and injured by airstrikes on a migrant detention centre near Tripoli, Libya.

I condemn this horrendous incident and call for an independent investigation.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) July 3, 2019

  Libya detention centre airstrike could amount to a war crime:  UN

Credit: By Gary Raynaldo /  Press briefing area outside UN Security Council chamber at world headquarters in New York. 

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting behind closed doors Wednesday on the Libyan detention center bombing, and is expected to issue a full  statement.  

The airstrike on a detention centre in Tripoli that killed scores of migrants and refugees “deserves more than condemnation”, UN agencies said on Wednesday, as both the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the head of the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL), insisted that it may amount to a war crime.

Ghassan Salamé, head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and Special Representative of the Secretary-General, reiterated the High Commissioner’s assessment of the attack, describing it as a “cowardly act”.

 “This attack clearly could constitute a war crime, as it killed by surprise innocent people whose dire conditions forced them to be in that shelter.”

-Ghassan Salamé,  head of UNSMIL, Special Rep.  of Secretary-General.