Libyan wounded describe "hell" of Misrata (Gaddafi using tanks & snipers to carry out a "massacre")

[Turborama]

Source: Reuters

By Tarek Amara | Mon Apr 4, 2011 9:33am EDT

- Gaddafi forces using tanks and snipers are carrying out a "massacre" in Misrata with corpses on the streets and hospitals full of the wounded, evacuees said, with one describing the besieged city as "hell."

Misrata, Libya's third city, rose up with other towns against Muammar Gaddafi's rule in mid-February, and it is now under attack by government troops after a violent crackdown put an end to most protests elsewhere in the west of the country.

"You have to visit Misrata to see the massacre by Gaddafi," said Omar Boubaker, a 40-year-old engineer with a bullet wound to the leg, brought to the Tunisian port of Sfax by a French aid group. "Corpses are in the street. Hospitals are overflowing."

=snip=

"I could live or die but I am thinking of my family and friends who are stranded in the hell of Misrata," said tearful evacuee Abdullah Lacheeb, who had serious injuries to his pelvis and stomach and a bullet wound in his leg. "Imagine, they use tanks against civilians. He (Gaddafi) is prepared to kill everyone there ... I am thinking of my family."

Read more: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9133948/libyan-wounded-describe-hell-of-misrata/

---

A LOT more info at the link.

Video report on the Turkish ship that's mentioned later in the article...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x569799">Turkey Sails In To Evacuate Wounded Libyans From Misurata, Revolutionaries In Benghazi Welcome Them


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/25/world/middleeast/map-of-how-the-protests-unfolded-in-libya.html">SOURCE

[dkf]

1. Are those quotes supposed to denote skepticism?

[Turborama]

2. Nope, they are quotes from witnesses. n/t

[Turborama]

3. Libya: Médecins Sans Frontières Evacuates 71 War-Wounded from Misrata By Boat

Sfax, Tunisia/Geneva, April 4, 2011 — The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) evacuated 71 patients by boat Sunday, April 3 from the Libyan city of Misrata, where ongoing violence has overwhelmed medical facilities with the wounded.

Among the evacuated patients were three people on life support, 11 people suffering from major trauma, and many others with abdominal wounds and open fractures. Intensive medical care was provided on board as the boat sailed to Tunisia, where it arrived this morning.

“We managed to dock at Misrata on Sunday afternoon, despite intense fighting in the city over the past few days,” said Helmy Mekaoui, an MSF doctor who coordinated the medical evacuation. “The violence caused an influx of wounded people and it was fortunate we could be there and get them onboard.”

The hospital in Misrata reportedly came under bombardment early Sunday. Remaining functional health clinics in the city are overflowing with severely injured patients and are running desperately short of medical supplies.

Full article: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=5163&cat=press-release

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Turborama]

5. Report:NATO have destroyed a T-92 tank that was shelling civilian homes in Misrata vegetable market

BREAKING: Wefaqlibya reports that NATO have just destroyed a T-92 tank that was shelling civilian homes in Misrata vegetable market.
http://www.breakingnews.com/seed/ahBicmVha2luZ25ld3Mtd3d3cg0LEgRTZWVkGLTB8QIM/2011/04/04/breaking-wefaqlibya-reports-that-nato-have-just-destroyed-a-t-92-tank-that-was-shelling-civilian-homes-in-misrata-vegetable-market-libya

[Turborama]

6. Red Cross Appeals for Access to Libyan City of Misrata

Scott Bobb | Benghazi, April 04, 2011

=snip=

Red Cross spokesperson Iman Monkar said weeks of fighting had prevented the group's medical teams from entering Misrata, 200 kilometers east of Tripoli, and the organization is very worried about the situation.

"Medical supplies have started to run out. So for us most important is to deliver these supplies to Misrata and that is why we keep asking everybody to grant us a safe access to Misrata," said Monkar. "So far we are still discussing. Our team has not been there yet but hopefully we will be able to do it as soon as possible."

=snip=

The Red Cross says its teams have been able to reach the cities of Brega and Ajdabiyah, about 200 kilometers from Benghazi. Opposition forces in eastern Libya have been fighting a back-and-forth battle with Gadhafi troops during the past few days.

The Red Cross says it has delivered 1,700 kilograms of surgical kits and frontline first-aid kits.

Full article: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Red-Cross-Appeals-for-Access-to-Libyan-City-of-Misrata-119191434.html

[Iterate]

7. Audio: LPC #Misrata: Caller describes attacks in Misrata this PM.

LPC #Misrata: Caller describes attacks in Misrata this AM, possible airstrikes. (recorded 4pm Local time) #Libya

http://audioboo.fm/boos/321800-lpc-misrata-caller-describes-attacks-in-misrata-this-am-possible-airstrikes-recorded-4pm-local-time-libya

Also describing attacks aimed toward eastern city klinik and evacuation of all civilians from city center.

[provis99]

8. so someone assassinate Gadaffi; problem solved.

It's a hell of a lot better than dropping bombs all over the place, and hoping that something good magically happens.

[Caustic Logic]

21. He didn't fake that sniper-bullet x-ray

see my comment below. This claim is based, at least partly, on total fakery. I don't support the takeover of a revolutionary people's republic based on deception.

[defendandprotect]

9. Thank you -- all of DU has to understand more of this -- !!

[Turborama]

10. Reuters: Shelling in Misrata targets shelter, five dead

RABAT | Mon Apr 4, 2011 8:34pm BST

(Reuters) - At least five people were killed when forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi shelled a residential area in the besieged city of Misrata late on Monday, a doctor said, warning the death toll was likely to keep rising.

"The reception in the hospital is full. Five people were confirmed killed in the last two hours and five more are in critical condition," the doctor, who gave his name as Ramadan, told Reuters by phone from the city.

A second medic said the latest artillery assault on Libya's third biggest city had left many wounded but medical teams were unable to reach them because of sporadic shelling.

A rebel spokesman said the attack by pro-Gaddafi troops lasted four hours. The doctor said he was told by emergency crews the bombardment had targeted a school serving as a makeshift shelter for residents fleeing the fighting in other parts of Misrata.

Full article: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/uk-libya-misrata-deaths-idUKTRE73356020110404

Hat tip to joshcryer for posting it in the GD OP, where I found it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x812269

[Turborama]

11. The Guardian: Libyans in Misrata describe terror inflicted by Gaddafi's snipers

'We are afraid to step into the street. You can just be shot', say Libyans in Misrata, as assault by regime enters sixth week

Chris McGreal in Benghazi | Monday April 04 2011 18.28 BST

There has been much to terrorise the people of Misrata over the past weeks of bloody siege. Tank shells and mortars have fallen at random in the heart of the rebel-held Libyan city, with little warning bar the final whistle of the explosive flying through the air. Muammar Gaddafi's planes have periodically bombed the revolutionary enclave in the west of the country.

But residents say there has been nothing like the snipers.

"We are afraid even to step into the street any time. You can just be shot. I've seen children shot. They come in here with arms and legs destroyed. The snipers know who they are shooting. It's terror," said a doctor reached at one of the town's hospitals who said he wanted to give his name only as Ali because he feared for the safety of his family elsewhere in Libya.

"Before you could go out when they weren't shelling and bombing. But now you never know. Some of the snipers are not even wearing uniforms."

Among the victims was 13-year-old Khalid, who escaped the city on Sunday on a Turkish car ferry turned makeshift hospital ship. He described how he was shot in the thigh by a sniper while going out for his mother to try to find food. He said he was not a fighter and did not have a gun. "I did not see him. He just shot me. I had to crawl back to my house and my mother saw me and screamed. There was a lot of blood," he said. Another boy told of shrapnel tearing into him after a mortar exploded in the street. Mohammed Bashir, a 41-year-old prosecutor who lost his left leg to a mortar attack, said: "They shoot at anyone who goes out, even those with children."

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/04/misrata-libya-residents-sniper-terror

Hat tip to joshcryer for posting it in the GD OP, where I found it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x812269

[pinboy3niner]

12. Toronto Star: Everybody has a horrific tale to share on this ambulance ship

Source: Toronto Star

DiManno: Everybody has a horrific tale to share on this ambulance ship


Published 1 hour 7 minutes ago


BENGHAZI, LIBYA—The injuries are horrendous: A hole in the centre of a face where the nose had been, limbs blown off, shredded torsos held together with staples and bandages, a child’s cheeks blackened and pockmarked by shrapnel.

Yet these poor people — the medically evacuated casualties of Misurata — are the less critical cases, the limping and wheelchair-pushed and stretcher-borne wounded extracted by sea from a city being hammered into submission by Moammar Gadhafi’s merciless forces.

Those worse off, immobile or tethered to critical care machines or simply diagnosed as doomed, were left behind, a thousand more who’d pressed forward at the dock, pleading, who could only watch salvation sail away.

...


This is the carnage of Gadhafi’s war on his own citizens, the vengeance inflicted on a city that dared to claim itself liberated from a madman’s iron fist.

“Soldiers, civilians, it’s all the same to him,’’ says Mustafa Abdellah, who lost his lower left leg in a shelling attack seven days earlier. “Gadhafi is an animal. Who else would do this to his own people?

“In Misurata, all people can do is pray for this hell to end. I thank God to have been brought away but so many remain trapped. Please, please help them. Gadhafi is destroying the whole city.’’

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/968460--dimanno-everybody-has-a-horrific-tale-to-share-
on-this-ambulance-ship

[Turborama]

16. UNICEF: Snipers targeting children in Misurata

GENEVA — Snipers are targeting children in the besieged rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata, the U.N.' s children agency said Friday.

Hundreds of residents have been killed and wounded in the assault by Gadhafi's forces on Libya's third-largest city, and residents are running short of water, food and medicine.

"What we have are reliable and consistent reports of children being among the people targeted by snipers in Misrata," UNICEF spokeswoman
Marixie Mercado told reporters in Geneva.

=snip=

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it is sending a team to Misrata by boat Friday and would investigate the reports of snipers targeting children.

Full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42488847/ns/world_news-europe

[Caustic Logic]

20. Snipers shoot kids in incubators - wartime propaganda - PROVEN FAKE!

I don't know if anyone reads these older threads, but I'm making the rounds with some findings.

Sniping kids is an incendiary claim, not unlike the Iraq incubator babies story of 1991. Most people will believe this, as they did that, based on repetition and deeply ingrained prior bias. But I for one doubted the claim enough to look into it some.
1) There are some credible reports in recent days of children suffering apparent gun shots to the head.
2) It's impossible to say for certain who fired any particular bullet (loyalists? On orders? Provocateurs?)
3) At least some of the evidence cited to support the claims is FAKE.

Two young children, a girl evacuated to Turkey, and a boy still in Misrata aged about 4 and 5 years old, were claimed on April 9 and 10 to have been shot in the chest by snipers. Both had x-ray films to prove it. Both films are copies of the same exact image. And the image looks pretty fake (no broken ribs, bullet not deformed, strange angle of entry, etc.). I've explained this in an essay titled "the sniped tykes of Misrata?" It's not the only major deception I've uncovered, nor will it be the last.

In short, expect more of this kind of distortion, expect every sign of the rebels' barbaric fanaticism and ethnic cleansing of eastern Libya to be ignored, expect every breathless report of Gaddafi atrocities to be repeated a million times at the highest levels, and the debunks and retractions to be ignored. In the meantime, we'll cheer like drunken fools as our militaries topple a rare economic system that has maintained its independence, fulfilling a 40-year CIA-Wall Street goal. Further, there's evidence suggesting this whole spontaneous revolution we were forced to help was planned out in France between November and January. How long will be helping the new "rebel" government suppress the 2/3 of Libya's population that's unhappy with the change foisted on them?

[pinboy3niner]

13. Kick

:kick:

[Turborama]

14. EuroNews: Misrata “hell” captured on video

Evacuees describe Misrata as hell. Pictures of the besieged city from YouTube gives some idea of what they are talking about.

The footage features damaged buildings, tanks in the streets and the shattering sound of attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces.

Misrata has been encircled and under fire by troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for weeks. Hundreds of people have been wounded and killed.

UN-mandated air strikes to protect civilians in Misrata, the only major rebel stronghold in western Libya, have failed to halt tank and sniper fire. Residential areas are said to be being targeted.

This text is the transcript that goes with EuroNews' version of the video they have embedded here: http://www.euronews.net/2011/04/05/misrata-hell-captured-on-video/

The raw YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sziV9u8JUE

[Turborama]

15. AP: Turkish ship evacuates wounded from Libya

By BERTAN AYDUK , 04.05.11, 12:15 PM EDT

CESME, Turkey -- Hundreds of Libyans hurt during fierce fighting arrived Tuesday in Turkey, where medics wheeled the wounded out in stretchers for emergency care at a hastily assembled portside hospital.

Passengers waved the flags of Turkey and of the Libyan opposition and cheered "Turkey! Turkey!" from the deck as the ferry-turned-hospital brought wounded residents from the besieged Libyan city of Misrata and the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. The wounded appeared to include at least two children - one with cuts or burns on his face.

Some 60 ambulances and two helicopters were on standby as the ferry docked at the port of Cesme on Turkey's Aegean coast.

NATO member Turkey initially balked at the idea of military action in Libya, but is now taking part in the enforcement of a no-fly zone to shield civilians and has vowed to front humanitarian aid efforts in the country

Full article: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/04/05/general-eu-turkey-libya-wounded_8392099.html

[WatsonT]

17. Only way to stop this sort of thing is to put troops there

which is horrible for other reasons.

Awesome quagmire we're in now.

Glad we aren't bogged down anywhere else.

[joshcryer]

18. Nah, get rid of the heavy weaponry and the streets will be clean re: Ajdabiya.

[WatsonT]

19. Snipers don't use heavy weaponry

and plenty of massacres have been carried out with much less.

Look at Rwanda. They didn't need tanks.