EU troops tipped for Libyan relief mission

Relief operations in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata could involve 1000 European Union ground troops to assist the effort.

The Guardian reports that the EU has drawn up a plan for the mission, but needs United Nations approval. It says the troops would be deployed to secure the delivery of aid supplies.

Although they would not be involved in a combat role, they would be authorised to fight if they or their humanitarian wards were threatened. "It would be to secure sea and land corridors inside the country," an EU official told the newspaper.

The Guardian said the mission would involve securing port areas, aid delivery corridors, loading and unloading ships and escorting ships.

A request for an EU military mission would have to come from the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs but the member states have signed off on plans.

Yesterday, after rescue workers were forced to turn desperate refugees away from ships in Misrata, the British Government stepped in to fund the evacuation of another 5000 people from the city.

The International Organisation of Migration, which has been organising the evacuation ships, took 1000 more foreign workers and wounded Libyans out of Misrata yesterday.

Any EU force in Libya, even if designed simply to protect aid supplies, would represent a marked change in approach from the international coalition that is attempting to oust Muammar Gaddafi. No such force has yet been authorised by the UN.

But British government sources said that proposals to arm the rebels had not gone away - so long as it could be done in such a way that would appear to comply with Resolution 1973.

They were sceptical about whether there was any realistic prospect of a new resolution, as mooted by French government officials at the end of last week.

"We've pushed the Security Council as far as it's willing to go already," said one. "We think it is very unlikely that there will be a third resolution."

The IOM estimates that thousands more refugees are still stuck in the port area, among them women and children, many living in the open without access to food, water or medicine.

"We wanted to be able to take more people but it was not possible," said Jeremy Haslam, who led the IOM mission, which has been going on for days but is still far from clearing the city of civilians. "Although the exchange of fire subsided while we were boarding ... we had a very limited time to get the migrants and Libyans on board the ship and leave."

Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary, said yesterday that Britain would play a leading role in getting those left behind out of Misrata, which has become the scene of the most relentless Gaddafi assault in the country. Pro-Gaddafi forces have made serious incursions into the city in recent days, although the rebels were reported to have regained a small chunk of the centre yesterday.

The administrator of the main hospital in Misrata, Dr Khaled Abu Falgha, said that in all, 1000 people were estimated to have been killed in the fighting that broke out in Misrata nearly six weeks ago, while another 3000 people had been wounded.

"Eighty per cent of the deaths are civilians," he said.

"[The refugees] find themselves at terrible risk from incoming fire, with no way to get out," Mitchell said on a visit to New York to discuss the aid mission at the UN. "These evacuations will take them to safety and help reduce the demand in Misrata for the very limited supplies of food, water and medical supplies available."

Migrant workers are reported to be converging on Misrata from nearby cities in the hope of escaping from the relentless bombardment. But in Benghazi yesterday Baroness Valerie Amos, the British head of the UN's humanitarian operation, admitted that, while Gaddafi's Government had promised access for an aid mission during earlier talks in Tripoli, there had been no guarantee that attacks would cease in order to allow the delivery of supplies.

Libyan officials in Tripoli said that a humanitarian corridor would be set up but did not specify whether such a move would include a cessation of the violence which they characterise as defensive.

But the head of the Red Crescent in Misrata was sceptical the regime would deliver on its promise, as snipers, cluster bombs and intense shelling spread panic in the city.

"Gaddafi says a lot of nonsense," Omar Abu Zaid said. "We would like anything to help the people of Misrata. But we don't trust Gaddafi."

There is also pessimism over the prospects of resolving the impasse in Libya by finding a country that would be prepared to take Gaddafi. Reports at the weekend suggested that the allies were looking for a country in Africa which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, and where he would be safe from extradition to face prosecution at the International Criminal Court.

- INDEPENDENT, AFP