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| Africa North | |
| Aid floods into Tripoli as fighting stops | |
| 2011-08-30 | |
| GENEVA: Tripoli's hospitals have put the worst behind them after an end to the fighting in Libya's capital opened the way to a flood of aid and enabled medical staff to get back to work, aid agencies said on Monday. In a rapid return to normality, even the notorious Abu Salim hospital, where 75 bodies were found after staff fled fighting in the area, is welcoming patients once again. "This hospital has just reopened yesterday and it's beginning to function. It was cleaned up and everything is supposed to be in place now," said Robin Waudo, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tripoli.
Waudo said the security situation was evolving and normalizing as most of the city was now free of fighting. "So what we see are more and more people coming out on to the streets. Shops are opening up and it's slowly possible for life to return to some sort of normalcy." Although the violence in Tripoli has not completely ended, the relative peace has reassured aid agencies that they can now get into the capital, rescuing stranded foreigners and resupplying hospitals and relieving exhausted medical staff. The World Food Program has sent a humanitarian convoy of trucks from Tunisia, with medical supplies, medicine and blood donated by the government of Tunisia. The convoy includes 23 trucks carrying 500 tons of food and five water tankers. A World Health Organization was sending 45 tons of medical supplies as part of the same effort, a spokesman said, and supplies from MSF may add a further 10 tons in the next few days. Although the airport is still closed, Tripoli's sea port is open, allowing aid to come in and evacuees to get out. The effort to bring foreign aid is continuing despite the revelation last week that rebel fighters had found massive stores of food, fuel and medicine in Tripoli. National Transitional Council chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil last week said the stockpiles had enough food to feed a city twice its size -- its population is 2 million -- and enough medicine for the entire country for a year. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Yepper...it's alll workin out. Iran 'discreetly aided Libyan rebels' |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2011-08-30 10:42 |