Geolocation
Airwars assessment
According to the Daily Telegraph, 19 civilians were killed after explosions in a munitions depot in Ar Rajma near Benghazi. It is unclear whether the incident was caused by an airstrike by the Gaddafi regime.
The Telegraph wrote at the time: “The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear, although most local residents ruled out an air strike by forces loyal to Libyan leader Col Gaddafi in an intensifying battle with eastern rebels fighting for his ouster.”
It added the following on the number of victims: “Doctor Mustafa Saleh al-Orfali said 17 people had been killed and another hospital official registered 26 wounded. Doctor Idriss Ghazali said two dead had been brought to the Houari hospital and 14 others had been wounded after witnesses reported the explosions at the Al-Rajma military base, southeast of Benghazi.”
In addition, the newspaper noted that “Walid Werfelly, 32, whose family lives in the Al-Rajma area said he saw two women dead at another hospital, after their poorly built homes collapsed from the force of the blast.”
Iyad el-Baghdadi said on Twitter: “Aljazeera now airing first footage from site of #Benghazi explosion. They say it was an air strike.”
The incident occured at 18:30:00 local time.
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the a base in the village of Al Rajma (الجغبوب), for which the generic coordinates are: 32.071284, 20.342587. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.