Libya

Heavy fighting killed at least 10 people in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata on Saturday. “Since eight o clock this morning, we have received 10 dead and 50 wounded, which is usually the number for a full day,” said Doctor Khalid Abu Salra at the main Hikma hospital in the western port city. “We re overwhelmed, overwhelmed. We lack everything: personnel, equipment and medicines,” the doctor said. Ambulances pulled up outside the hospital every three or four minutes, and they also brought in wounded soldiers loyal to Colonel Moamer Gaddafi’s regime, as paramedics frantically wiped blood off stretchers. Misrata has been the scene of deadly urban guerrilla fighting between pro-Gaddafi forces and outgunned rebels for more than six weeks. Saturday’s upsurge in the fight for the port city comes after the Gaddafi regime said it had given its army an “ultimatum” to stop the rebellion in the city, 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the capital Tripoli. Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said, “There was an ultimatum to the Libyan army: if they cannot solve the problem in Misrata, then the people from (the neighbouring towns of) Zliten, Tarhuna, Bani Walid and Tawargha will move in and they will talk to the rebels.” "If they don t surrender, then they will engage them in a fight," he told journalists. On Saturday, an aid ship chartered by the International Organisation for Migration delivered 160 tonnes of food and medicine to Misrata before it evacuates around 1,000 stranded refugees, mostly Nigerians.