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Libya releases 100 migrants from shelled detention centre

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Libyan officials allowed at least 100 migrants to walk free on Tuesday from a detention centre in the capital Tripoli that was hit by a deadly attack last week.

FILE PHOTO: A migrant picks up clothes from among rubble at a detention centre for mainly African migrants that was hit by an air strike in the Tajoura suburb of the Libyan capital of Tripoli, July 3, 2019. REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny/File Photo

The July 3 airstrike, killed 53 people and injured 130 others, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest death toll on Twitter.

It occurred as eastern forces Libyan National Army (LNA) under General Khalifa Haftar keep up a ground and aerial offensive to wrestle control of Tripoli from the U.N.-backed government.

Officials at the centre, run by the U.N.-backed government in an eastern suburb of Tripoli, said they took the decision after the migrants protested over not being included in an evacuation list by the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR).

A resident from Tajoura, a suburb in eastern Tripoli, said migrants were seen marching from the detention centre.

It was not immediately clear where they intended to go.

Following their departure, about 110 other migrants remain at the centre, lying in the open air and using mattresses for shelter from the sun, the official said.

“They don’t want to go back inside the hangar as they’re afraid of any further air strikes,” the official added.

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