Libya’s cities left ‘re-contaminated’ by months of fighting, warn landmine clearance experts

Ongoing hostilities in Libya have left numerous cities severely “re-contaminated” with unexploded ordnance, threatening schools, universities and hospitals, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said on Wednesday.

The warning about hazardous military hardware – often referred to by the acronym UXO – came during a meeting of mine action experts at the UN in Geneva.

It follows months of conflict in the suburbs of Tripoli between the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (or GNA) and the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), led by commander Khalifa Haftar, who laid siege to the capital last April.

At UN-led talks earlier this month between the two sides aiming to secure a lasting ceasefire, UN negotiator Ghassan Salamé noted that there were at least 20 million “pieces of ordnance” in Libya.