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update on libya

Death toll mounts in Libya protests - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - msnbc.com


TRIPOLI — Libyan forces opened fire on mourners leaving a funeral for protesters Saturday in the flashpoint city of Benghazi. A witness said dozens were killed.

In the worst unrest in Moammar Gaddafi's four decades in power, bodies piled up in a hospital and doctors collapsed in grief at the sight of dead relatives.

The deaths, if confirmed, would pushe the overall estimated death toll to well over 100 in five days of unprecedented protests against Gadhafi. Government forces also wiped out a protest encampment and clamped down on Internet service throughout the North African nation.

As relatives buried their dead, they fell victim to a mixture of special commandos, foreign mercenaries and Gadhafi loyalists armed with knives, Kalashnikovs and even anti-aircraft missiles trying to quell the demonstrations, witnesses said.

"The blood of our martyrs is still leaking from coffins over the shoulders of the mourners," one female protester, who is also a lawyer, said while standing in front of about 20 coffins lined up in front of the Northern Court building in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city and the epicenter of the current unrest.

Before Saturday's violence, Human Rights Watch had estimated at least 84 people have been killed.

Hospitals ran low on medical supplies and were packed with bodies shot in the chest and head, said the medical official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisal.

.Al Jazeera television earlier reported that security forces opening fire at a funeral killed at least 15 people in Libya's second city.

But a witness told Reuters: "Dozens were killed ... not 15, dozens. We are in the midst of a massacre here." The man said he helped take the victims to a local hospital.

Tight grip on media access
Information is tightly controlled in Libya, where journalists cannot work freely, and some of the accounts could not be independently confirmed. Other information comes from opposition activists in exile.

Internet service was cut off for a second consecutive day, a U.S. company that monitors Internet traffic said on Saturday.

Massachusetts-based Arbor Networks said data collected from 30 Internet providers around the world showed that online traffic in and out of Libya was disconnected abruptly at 7:15 p.m. EST on Friday after two partial interruptions earlier that day.
Internet traffic returned several hours later at reduced levels only to drop off completely again at 4:55 p.m. EST on Saturday, according to the Arbor data.

The Internet has been used in recent weeks by anti-government protesters in North Africa and the Middle East to help coordinate their demonstrations.

Egyptian authorities cut Internet service for a few days during a revolt that succeeded last week in toppling Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in power.

Gadhafi has been trying to bring his country out of isolation, announcing in 2003 that he was abandoning his program for weapons of mass destruction, renouncing terrorism and compensating victims of the 1986 La Belle disco bombing in Berlin and the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Those decisions opened the door for warmer relations with the West and the lifting of U.N. and U.S. sanctions, but Gadhafi continues to face allegations of human rights violations in the North African nation.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called reports of the use of snipers and heavy weapons against demonstrators in Libya "clearly unacceptable and horrifying," and criticized restrictions on media access.
Before the Internet was shut down, videos posted on a Facebook page showed Libyan protesters smashing a stone representation of the "Green Book," which is Ghadhafi's manifesto, as well as destroying billboards of the Libyan leader. Video of torched Revolutionary Committees buildings also were posted. Protesters say that defiance is growing with the increasing bloodshed and attempts by authorities to silence them by offering financial compensation to relatives of the dead.
"Gadhafi's men came to us and tried to bribe many of our colleagues," said the female protester, but she added that the opposition would not agree to any negotiations with the regime because of the bloodshed.

Her account could not be verified independently but was identical to those of several others contacted by the AP.

Tariq Mohamed of San Antonio, Texas, told msnbc.com on Saturday he feared for his relatives living in Benghazi in what he called the worst unrest in Gaddafi's four decades in power. Mohamed said he has been unable to contact cousins and friends on Saturday.
"People are dying in the streets and we need to find out what is happening," Mohamed said. "The Obama administration needs to wake up to the fact that women and children are being gunned down in Libya."

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