PROTESTERS in the Libyan capital of Tripoli are reported to have set fire to a number of key government buildings, as well as the headquarters of the state broadcaster, as anti-government protests continue in the country.
Demonstrators have continued their on-street protests in the country as the earlier uprising that had began in the country’s eastern fringes continued to spread nationwide, in opposition at the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
At least 200 people were thought to have been killed as a result of the protests by this morning, but the Guardian reports that around 250 more may have been killed following military defections in the east, where soldiers had joined forces with the opposition and possibly opened fire with their former colleagues.
It is difficult to get full accurate reports of the level of protests within the country, however, because the government makes a habit of refusing access to the country for foreign media; as a result few agencies have full-time reporters in the region.
Hundreds of foreign correspondents are assembling on the country’s border with Egypt, however, awaiting what is now considered to be the inevitable collapse of the Gaddafi regime.
Ashraf Khalil, one freelancer working for the Wall Street Journal, tweeted to suggest that the media was “just waiting for the floodgates to open”.
Protests have continued at the Libyan embassy in London, meanwhile, where both British and Libyan people have demonstrated against the ongoing rule Gaddafi and his administration.
The BBC reported that today’s demonstrations were the first protesters could remember where staff from the embassy – which also handles Libya’s diplomatic relations with Ireland – had not taken video recordings of any protests.
This, the demonstrators felt, was a sign the administration was crumbling, and unwilling to continue tracking the government’s British-based opponents.
Reuters Africa reports that the dependants of the staff at Britain’s embassy in Tripoli were preparing to leave the country following the ongoing upheaval, over fears for their safety if violence was to become more widespread.
A spokesman for the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office told TheJournal.ie, however, that there were no Irish staff in the Embassy’s office and that no Irish citizens were therefore affected by the evacuation.
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