UN, EU call for probe into deadly strike on Libya migrant centre

Calls for an independent probe mounted Wednesday after more than 40 migrants were killed in an air strike on a detention centre in Libya that the UN said could constitute a war crime.

UN chief Antonio Guterres denounced the "horrendous" attack and demanded "an independent investigation", his spokesman said, as the Security Council was to hold urgent talks about the situation in Libya.

It came as the internationally-recognised government and its arch-foe strongman Khalifa Haftar traded blame for the the deadly assault, which the European Union called a "horrific" attack.

Bodies were strewn on the floor of a hangar in the Tripoli suburb of Tajoura, mixed with the belongings and blood-soaked clothes of migrants, an AFP photographer said.

"There were bodies, blood and pieces of flesh everywhere," a survivor, 26-year-old Al-Mahdi Hafyan from Morocco, told AFP from his hospital bed where he was being treated for a leg wound.

Tuesday night's strike left a hole around three metres (10 feet) in diameter at the centre of the hangar, surrounded by debris ripped from the metal structure by the force of the blast.

At least 44 people were killed and more than 130 severely injured, the UN said.

Guterres recalled that the United Nations had shared the coordinates of the Tajoura detention centre east of Tripoli with the warring sides to ensure that civilians sheltering there were safe.

The UN chief "condemns this horrendous incident in the strongest terms," said a statement from his spokesman.

He "calls for an independent investigation of the circumstances of this incident, to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice, noting that the United Nations had provided exact coordinates of the detention centre to the parties."
His envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame said earlier: "This attack clearly could constitute a war crime, as it killed by surprise innocent people whose dire conditions forced them to be in that shelter."