Libya will become a failed state like Somalia unless its warring militias quickly agree to a power-sharing agreement.
This warning came from Italy’s foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni who said Libya risks turning into another Somalia.
Paolo Gentiloni said if peace talks did not succeed in ending the country’s civil war within a few weeks, “we will find ourselves with another Somalia two steps from our coasts”.
Libya has become a key human trafficking hub and Launchpad for Europe-bound boat migrants, and, amid slow progress in United Nations-brokered peace talks, has seen the Islamic State seize control of the coastal city of Sirte.
“Timing is crucial and is not unlimited, especially now that the presence of [the Islamic State] in Sirte has taken worrying proportions,” Gentiloni told the La Stampa newspaper.
IS militants seized control of the coastal city in June with militants beheading 12 local militiamen who had been battling them before hanging their bodies on crosses, according to the Libyan news agency LANA.
Italy has been badly affected by the chaos in the North African country, with hundreds of thousands of migrants attempting to reach its shores from Libya on often unseaworthy vessels — 102,000 this year alone.
But the rise of a jihadist IS offshoot in the centre of the country is now causing alarm on the other side of the Mediterranean.
“We are deeply concerned about reports that these fighters have shelled densely populated parts of the city and committed indiscriminate acts of violence to terrorise the Libyan population,” said a joint statement by Britain, France, Germany, Spain and the United States.
