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Gaddafi Targets Relief Ship as It Evacuates Misrata Wounded in Libya
Muammar Gaddafi's forces bombard port in Misrata as humanitarian ship tries to evacuate foreign migrants
Muammar Gaddafi's forces have bombarded the port of the besieged city of Misrata while a humanitarian ship was evacuating hundreds of foreign migrants and injured Libyan civilians, killing up to five members of a migrant family.
The Red Star 1, a ferry chartered by the International Organisation for Migration, had been forced to wait outside Misrata for four days after loyalist troops planted sea mines and pounded the harbour with missiles.
The port controller has finally given the ship the go-ahead to dock following a lull in shelling. But as containers of food and medical supplies were being unloaded from the ship, up to a dozen missiles were fired into the area of the port where migrant workers were gathered.
Witnesses said one missile hit a Nigerian or Ghanaian family, killing at least two children and their mother. Others said that the father and a third child had also died.
Julius Chuks, a 35-year-old Nigerian welder, said: "When the attacks started, everyone just started running, though we did not know where to run to. We are very lucky to be alive."
The bombardment caused panic on the ship, with some of the crew keen to leave without boarding the migrant workers or injured people, fearing another missile attack.
Having somehow gained access to the port, dozens of Libyan families desperate to leave Misrata tried to force their way on to the ship, many of them successfully, causing rebel soldiers to fire in the air.
More than 800 migrants, most from sub-Saharan Africa, who have been waiting for weeks to leave Misrata, arrived soon after, packed into trucks. Many of them had been unable to even bring a suitcase along due to the chaos and rush that followed the shelling of their camp.
About 35 injured or critically ill Libyans were wheeled on to the car deck, where makeshift wards had been set up. Shortly after departure, the boat returned to the quay to unload one of the patients, after doctors on board judged would not survive the 20-hour sea voyage. About 100 African migrants were unable to board the ship due to a lack of space.
Finally, in the early afternoon, the Red Star left the port and set sail into the Mediterranean towards Benghazi, the rebel capital in eastern Libya.
"When we came to Misrata before, there was shelling, but this was the closest to the port," said Othman Belbeisi, the head of mission for the IOM, which has evacuated about 5,500 people from Libya's third biggest city since March.
"It was a very dangerous situation, and the captain wanted to leave when the attack started. But we had to take the risk of staying because it was impossible to leave behind the migrants and the medical cases."
Gaddafi, whose forces have been largely defeated in Misrata by the rebels' citizen army, has pledged to shut the port, saying it was being used to ferry in light weapons from Benghazi. But many people in Misrata believe that he is trying to starve them out, as the port is the city's lifeline, allowing in food and other basic goods.
On board the Red Star 1, some of the migrants spoke of their ordeals.
"When the fighting started in Misrata we had to stay indoors all the time," said Samuel Ampansa, a 28-year-old mason from Ghana.
"When I finally reached the camp at the port, conditions were bad. There was so much bombing, and we had to run like cats and dogs," he added.
The bombardment of the migrants' camp, like so many attacks in the war to date, exposed as a lie Gaddafi's claim that he is not targeting civilians. After two days during which the port had not been shelled, the attack appeared timed to coincide with the humanitarian ship's arrival.
Since the start of the evacuation of migrants early last month, around 15 have been killed by shells fired by Gaddafi's troops.
Despite the ongoing violence, many of the migrants on the ship were initially reluctant to leave Libya since they had endured difficult – and illegal – journeys through the Sahara desert just to get there in the first place.
Mabel Joseph, 27, who is four months pregnant, said she had only decided to return home when Libya's civil war reached the neighbourhood where she was staying a few weeks ago, leaving many dead. "I just made up to mind to leave at that time. I was making good money but I will not return. We regret ever coming to Misrata," she said.
Aslem Orubor, 28, a diesel mechanic from Nigeria, was on the boat with his wife, Maureen, and daughter Natasha, who is one. He said: "We were so scared for the two weeks we lived in the camp. Even our baby is affected by all the noise of the bombing."
Mamumuddin Bachuminia, 30, from Bangladesh, said Gaddafi's troops had ransacked his house, taking his mobile phone, television and his money. "Lots of people were killed. We need to go home," he said.
Salim el-Goumati, a 54-year-old Libyan man, reached the deck of the ship and burst into tears. Out of a small plastic bag, the only item he carried, he retrieved photos of two of his young children, aged eight and five. They were in Tripoli, with his wife and a third, smaller, child. He had not heard from them since the start of the revolution, he said. Now, his house had been destroyed by Gaddafi's missiles, and he had lost everything.
"Libyans are good people. But look what he [Gaddafi] has done to us."
23 Comments so far
Show Allbut let us not forget this:
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2010/06/eyewitness-accounts-of-israels-attack-on-the-humanitarian-aid-ship-mavi-marmara/
No longer at mj. The shills own it now.
The Isralii's were wrong too. And Nato is wrong to bomb Gadaffi's houses.
but it wasn't a 'house' to them............it was an operations unit.
Just another MSM reprint pro-US point-the-finger-piece.
Not one thin dime to CD for reprinting all the MSM propaganda it has dumped on folks this week.
Considering it's only Wednesday....
Thank you nocountryforold, for saving me the energy of writing a similar post.....
The underlying intention of the article is (obama rocks. Let's support him again in 2012).
Couldn't have said it better myself.
CD is basically contributing to this large myth that will eventually be the script to start world war III. I don't know who to trust for info anymore. Bank of another false flag attack to be blamed on the ISI and after that, war with Pakistan, then China who has said they will not tolerate aggresion against Pakistan. Oh, didnt know that? Well they said it, won't read it on here though.
Oh, I thought it was published by the UK Guardian. In spite of the Guardian's political views, they tell it like it is and this article is accurate. When Gaddafi's troops were sehlling the "port', it is not reasonable to believe they had no intent on hitting the ship or the refugees. Those H/E rockets they are using are about as accurate as an antique blunderbuss.
Maybe you should tell CD what to publish here on their website and pay them to do as you desire? Or maybe you could start your own news website?
You insist on the article's accuracy--just like you insisted that the white slanderings of Indian leaders in the late 19th century was accurate reporting.
You were not there THEN,
and moreover, you are not in Libya NOW.
And if you had been--and were now--you would lie anyway.
Maybe it's YOU who needs to start his own website--doesn't your "employer" have one?
("just like you insisted that the white slanderings of Indian leaders in the late 19th century was accurate reporting") ... That comment of yours is (not true).
I wrote what the white settlers and our government did to the Indians was criminal, immoral, wrong and evil. We have never righted those wrongs. Don't spread false information about me and I'm a quarter Chippawa blood. Shut it off! It's alright to disagree with me but don't spread lies. I am retired and I don't work for anyone.
I watched this shelling of the port on video and it lasted for more than a day. We have some friends who are there in Libya. Gaddafi also mined the port's waters, Would you like to also deny that? He has killed more than a thousand of his people so far and many were children and women who were not part of the rebel forces.
The headline screams that Mr Q targeted a relief ship, as if he had bombed the ship!
You have to read the body of the article to see that a port was shelled. That's a big difference, and evidence that the rst of the article is imperialist propaganda.
At the end the article editorializes:
"The bombardment of the migrants' camp, like so many attacks in the war to date, exposed as a lie Gaddafi's claim that he is not targeting civilians."
Maybe, but does the Guardian say the same about Obama's drones or NATO air attacks when they kill civilians? No! The Gaurdian is supposedly left wing, but as Israel Shamir points in today's lead article at counterpunch
"In England, the Guardian is the leading newspaper for calls to war. Libya, Syria – the Guardian wants them bombed. Afghanistan, Serbia, Iraq, - the Guardian wanted them to be invaded. It is just the package is different: instead of right-wing jingoism, the Guardian served the neo-colonialist adventurism under delicate sauce of humanitarian intervention. The Guardian leads on hypocrisy. The Guardian is not the newspaper of the left; it is the problem of the left."
Yes, the Guardian is presented as left, but mainly by those far to the right! It is too reliant on its corporate advertising revenue to be truly left.
Yeah, good ol boy Gaddafi would (never) have his troops try to kill his own people, NEVER! They were just shelling the port. His troops mined the inlet to the port last week just for fun, not to keep the relief and hospital ships from coming into port.
Gaddafi is really a "swell guy", and this article is not true. Yeah, all of those refugees are liars. Do any here actually know how accurate those truck mounted rockets Gaddafi's troops are firing? They are just slinging then away, like kids throwing rocks at a flock of chickens in a big fenced barnyard. They don't care who they injure or kill, babies, children, women or men.
I find it rather strange so many here at CD who support Gaddafi. Yes I have read some posts on other threads where it was said Gaddafi has done so much good for his people. Well, as I recall history, Adolph Hitler did a great deal of good for his people prior to 1939 and that eventual madman was highly respected by most of the world's leaders and public, until he invaded Poland and the rest of Hitler's history is bad history.
Now perhaps I am under-educated on the history of Gaddafi and need some education on what a wonderful person he is... I'm sure I will receive it.
And no, I am not a US government shill or a troll, for I would not shill for the bunch of corrupt and brain damaged idiots we have in our congress, or other corrupt government agencies, or anyone else.
I also believe CD does a great job of giving us the news, they don't say if they approve of it or disapprove, they just give us leading news and excellent articles on the views section for us to argue about. They don't charge us to read the articles or post our comments.
If anyone here who's griping about CD can find a website that suits them better,,, take off and be happy.
One doesn't have to "support Bad Taffy" to be against CD copying and pasting one sided imperialist propaganda that functions as little more than a 2 minute hate against the enemy de jour.
What if both sides were wrong and it wasn't our fight?
Hasn't all that kool-aid given you a belly-ache yet, Wayne?
How many days have you been shilling here?
And now you own the site?
You are being paid to post imbecilic comments to disrupt the threads and you have the nerve to tell other people to go post someplace else.
The ultimate white supremacy shill.
Where did all of this me being a shll come from. Oh yes, from a commenter named (Orchard Keeper) who disagreed with a post I worte and said I was a shill and he has written that lie several times on several different threads and someof you have picked it up and are running wwith it.
I am a now a retired pilot and normally post on enviromental issues and argue with the shills and trolls. Coco knows me very well, we are old friends as are Beforkids, Locust, Siouxrose and others here. I have been gone for two years and recently returned from working in the Arctic. I now use this commenter name.
If anyone reads all of my current comments on CD they would know I'm not a shill or a troll for anyone, especially our corrupt government or our corrupt MSN, or any big business or ayone else.
And I like this website and I don't agree with all of the authors articles . But no one agrees with everything. If you don't like the site and you think CD is a phony site why are you here? Perhaps you are a closet repug who is attempting to discredit me? Whatever, you are 100% wrong about me. And actually, I don't care what you think abou tme, as it's quite obvious that you aren't very smart.
I hope they got all the babies in incubators on board safely.
But, hey-- isn't it generally understood that a little collateral damage is to be expected during Kinetic Military Actions?
That's what everybody was saying the other day, when NATO destroyed Gaddafi's civilian grandchildren in order to save them!
So why all this hand-wringing all of a sudden?
It is a very serious error on NATO's part to attempt to kill Gaddafi. They are wrong. That was not the intent of the UN's commitment to save peple from genocide. Attacking tanks, rocket launchers, aircraft and artillary who are firing on civilians and shelling cities and ports is a far different matter.
If the rebels win and take Gaddafi out that is their business in a civil war. We should not attempt to assinate Gaddafi. And any argumet that Gaddafi's home is where he is controlling his troops is just political bullshit. Let him control them from his house if he desires. It isn't any problem for modern aricraft to target a tank or an artillary piece, day or night.
Will no one think of he oil? It's crying to be put in U.S. SUV tanks, sob! Oh the "humanity!"
The "rebels" by the way are militant jihadists ie Al Queda, you know the same people the jingoistic morons are cheering that we just killed, except when they are cute little rebels. Hurray for being mindless tools of the establishment!
Sigh!
You're in high shill mode today, Wayne. What, do you get paid by the word? Or is this simply self-sacrifice, and you want to let us all know just how delicious and nutritious the kool-aid really is?
Also: "It is a very serious error on NATO's part to attempt to kill Gaddafi. They are wrong."
Well, I'm glad you disapprove, but on what planet have you been living for the past ten years? This is EXACTLY how the US of A conducts its business. They're always targeting foreign leaders for "extrajudicial killings." It's just one of the many tricks we've borrowed from the bag of the world's second resident psychopath (pseudo) nation, Israel.
You can't have one without the other. That is, you can't defend US policy, as you do here, and not accept what this implies. Learn to think, Wayne.
Kaddafi is getting as horrible as Israel.
Clovis,,, two years ago you and I were friends here. I've been gone for two years now and am now using a different name. Read my replies to two others above. If I'm a shll, Bush Jr is a Saint and Cheney is the kindest, most honest man alive.
I'm not a shill just because I have a different opinion on a subject than you may have. Okay? I do not wish to say what my previous commenter name was... It wa just a name, I'm the same person.