Six civilians, including a child, were killed and 17 civilians were injured in alleged Libyan National Army (LNA) artillery strikes on Al Fornaj neighbourhood in Tripoli on May 16th, 2020. According to local sources, the strikes targeted housing units for displaced people at a university campus.
The Libya Observer reported that “five people were killed and six others were wounded in a rocket attack launched by the militia groups of Haftar on a residential compound for IDPs [Internally Displaced People] in Fornaj district of Tripoli on Saturday [May 16th], medical sources confirm.”
The Field Medicine and Support Center reported the names of five killed civilians and added there had been a sixth killed victim who remained unidentified. One of the victims was 5-year-old Bangladeshi boy Wahi Zuhair Matin. Burkan Al Ghadab Operation added that the the child’s “ambition was to buy a bike and ‘play like the kids’.” His family members Zuhair Matin (52) and Maria Zuhair Matin (5) were injured in the strikes.
The FMSC identified 17 civilians who were injured to varying degrees, including a woman. A spokesman for the FMSC told Libya Al Ahrar that a paramedic and an ambulance driver had been injured while helping the displaced people evacuate from the university campus building.
Burkan Al Ghadab Operation reported that “the martyr of duty Muhammad Ayyad Diyaf is one of the seven victims as a result of the bombing of the Haftar militia yesterday to accommodate the displaced persons in the university campus.” It is unclear what duties Diyaf was performing when he was killed.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members
(3)
5 years old
male
from Bangladesh
killed
52 years old
male
from Bangladesh
injured
5 years old
female
from Bangladesh
injured
The victims were named as:
22 years old
male
injured
48 years old
male
injured
20 years old
male
injured
30 years old
male
injured
40 years old
female
injured
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the university dormitory, which was being used as an IDP camp, being struck for which the generic coordinates are: 32.848091, 13.241433. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.