BEIRUT - Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafibombarded Misrata with rockets and artillery on Monday and 17people were killed in the previous day's shelling of thebesieged Libyan city, a rebel spokesman said.
Libya's third-largest city -- the insurgents' last majorstronghold in the west of the country -- has been under siege bypro-Gaddafi troops for about seven weeks. Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed inMisrata and thousands of foreign migrant workers are strandedthere in miserable conditions, trying to get out aboard rescueships sent by humanitarian bodies. "The Gaddafi forces are shelling Misrata now. They arefiring rockets and artillery rounds on the eastern side -- theNakl el Theqeel (road) and the residential areas around it,"Abdubasset Abu Mzeireq said from the coastal city. He said about 100 people were also wounded in Sunday'sclashes, mostly civilians. It was not possible to independentlyverify the information. A U.S.-based rights group said government forces hadlaunched indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks on residentialneighbourhoods in Misrata, including one that killed eightcivilians queueing for bread last Thursday. At least 16 civilians had been killed in indiscriminateattacks since April 14, based on witness accounts andinspections of the impact sites, Human Rights Watch said in astatement from Misrata. "Another attack, apparently with a mortar round, hit amedical clinic, wounding four others," it said. Human Rights Watch cited witnesses as saying rebel fighterswere not present in those areas when the attacks took place. "Libyan government forces have repeatedly fired mortars andGrad rockets into residential neighborhoods in Misrata, causingcivilian casualties," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies directorat Human Rights Watch. "The Soviet-made Grad in particular is one of the world'smost inaccurate rocket systems and should never be fired inareas with civilians," he said. Grad rockets are munitions fired in multiple rounds fromlaunchers on the back of trucks, which take their name from theRussian word for "hail". Amnesty International's Donatella Rovera, speaking bytelephone from Misrata to Al Jazeera television, said civilianswere being randomly targeted by Gaddafi's foreces. "Civilians are being bombarded by Gaddafi forces. I sawcluster bombs in residential areas. Grad missiles were beingused randomly on residential areas," she said. "Residents haveno place to escape to." Britain said it would give money to the InternationalOrganisation for Migration to evacuate 5,000 migrant workersstranded in Misrata. "The position in Misrata, which has sharply deterioriated inthe last few days, means there are 5,000 poor migrant workerscaught out on the quayside with munitions exploding some 300yards from where they are," Britain's International DevelopmentSecretary Andrew Mitchell, who is in New York for talks with theUnited Nations on the humanitarian situation in Libya, said. "Britain will give significant further humanitarian supportto move all 5,000 of these workers out of Misrata by boatthrough the International Organisation for Migration and back toEgypt," he told the BBC. Many of them were Egyptian and there were some Bangladeshisas well, he said. Libyan officials say they are fighting armed militia withties to al Qaeda bent on destroying the country, denyinggovernment troops are shelling the coastal city.
