At least two people have died as a result of clashes between armed groups in the town of Sabrata, in the northwest of the country, medical sources confirmed to The Libya Observer news portal.
According to local sources, the clashes began when militias from the neighboring town of Zauiya launched an incursion to arrest a senior member of the armed groups in Sabrata, identified as Ahmed Danbashi.
Although the clashes are not yet very intense, some families have been evacuated from the area, according to the Libyan portal.
The activity of the numerous militias operating in Libya — and particularly in the northwest, where many oil fields are located — has multiplied since March.
That month, the country unofficially re-entered into a state of administrative bicephaly with the declaration of Fazi Bashaga as «prime minister» by the parliament in the east of the country, against his great rival, the head of the unity government based in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid Dbeibé, whom he considers to be a delegitimized president.
Libya’s transitional government was mandated to take the country to elections last December, but they never took place due to divisions over the rules and the presence of controversial candidates, culminating in the controversial appointment of Bashaga.