The Benghazi Security Directorate announced on Wednesday, the arrest of two people accused of inadvertently leaking toxic chlorine gas. This poisoned dozens of people in the Qawarsha district, west of Benghazi.
In a statement, the directorate explained that one of the accused is a Libyan citizen and the other is Egyptian. They had mistakenly leaked the chlorine gas from a pipe, after exposing it to high temperatures.
It indicated that the pipe was stolen from inside the Al-Bayara chemical factory and was “sold to the Egyptian suspect for use in the scrap factory where he works.”
The Director of the Benghazi Medical Center, Fathia Al-Oraibi, said, “We received 30 cases of suffocation and nausea as a result of inhaling the gas. They were given the necessary first aid, and some of them have been discharged from the hospital.”
Recently, the security authorities in Benghazi arrested migrants of Turkish and Iranian origin whose boat was malfunctioning off the Libyan coast.
Head of the Benghazi Law Enforcement Force, Colonel Jamal Juma Al-Amami, said in a statement to Akhbar Libya 24 that the number of migrants exceeds 45.
Al-Amami added that these migrants were in Turkey and were heading to Italy. Their boat broke down off the Libyan coast, and the waves pulled them until the coast guard found them.
He explained that they disembarked at the Benghazi naval base. The security authorities handed them over to the Anti-Illegal Migrants Agency, in preparation for their deportation to their country at a later time.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that a total of 24,420 refugees and migrants have been rescued and returned to Libya so far in 2021.
In a statement, the UNHCR added that 42 migrants (including 8 women and 4 children) were disembarked at the Tripoli Naval Base last week.