Libyan troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi are rounding up black African migrants to force them to fight anti-Gaddafi rebels, Reuters is reporting.
The news agency said it had spoken to several young African men who have fled to Tunisia. The men told reporters at the Ras Jdir refugee camp near the Tunisia-Libya border that they were raided in their homes by soldiers, beaten and robbed of their savings and identity papers, then detained and finally offered money to take up arms for the state.
Those who refused were told they would never leave, said Fergo Fevomoye, a 23-year-old who crossed the border on Sunday."They will give you a gun and train you like a soldier. Then you fight the war of Libya. As I am talking to you now there is many blacks in training who say they are going to fight this war. They have prized [paid] them with lots of money."Fevomoye said Africans who are first intimidated and stripped of everything were then offered 250 Libyan dinars ($200) to train as fighters."They said I should take money and fight. They would give me 250 dinars. I said No. When I told them No they told me I would not go anywhere," he told Reuters.
The Libyan governemnt has denied using foreign nationals to fight the rebels, saying instead that dark-skinned Libyans serving in its security forces had been mistaken for black African mercenaries.
Tunisia's prime minister has named a new government after a spate of resignations.
Prime Minister Beji Caid-Essebsi has kept the heads of the key defence, interior, justice and foreign affairs ministries, but named new figures to six posts vacated last week amid new questions about Tunisia's direction.
Essebsi himself was named just a week ago after his predecessor quit. He says on his website Monday that his new appointments have been approved by the interim president.
William Hague, the foreign secretary, personally approved the botched plan to send a team of armed diplomats and SAS soldiers into eastern Libya in an effort to build diplomatic contacts with anti-Gaddafi rebels, my colleague Patrick Wintour writes.
The eight M16 officers and SAS soldiers were arrested then deportedafter only two days in the country. Patrick says that the prime minister's official spokesman "was reluctant to reveal details", partly due to the involvement of special forces, but told a briefing Hague had approved the operation "in the normal way".
It was impossible to discern from the briefing whether David Cameron had been specifically informed in advance, but it was stressed that the prime minister and the foreign secretary are in constant contact.Hague will be asked by shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander in the Commons to explain more of the thinking behind his decision to send in SAS troops by helicopter.Hague had already established phone contact with rebel leaders, including former interior minister Abdul Fattah Younis, raising questions as to why the British needed to operate in such a cloak and dagger way.Senior officials had said on Friday that a diplomatic taskforce would go to Benghazi, the capital of the rebels, in due course. But in reality an advance guard had already been sent.
More information on reports of Libyan aircraft launching fresh strikes on rebel positions around Ras Lanuf from Associated Press, where anti-Gaddafi forces are calling for the west to impose a no-fly zone.
Rebels in the area said they can take on Gaddafi's elite ground forces, but are outgunned if he uses his air power.
"We don't want a foreign military intervention, but we do want a no-fly zone," said rebel fighter Ali Suleiman. He added that the rebels can take on "the rockets and the tanks, but not Gadhafi's air force."
More than 1,000 illegal immigrants escaping political turmoil in north Africa arrived on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean on Sunday night, Reuters reports.
Taking advantage of good weather, the immigrants, most of them from Tunisia, arrived in more than 10 boats. Some of the boats made it to the shores on their own, others were intercepted by the coastguard and their passengers taken off. None were believed to have left from Libya, but officials fear an exodus from Italy's former colony if the situation worsens.
From Lampedusa immigrants are sent by plane to holding centres on the mainland but the backlog is beginning to grow.
Interior minister Roberto Maroni said last week an aid mission to Tunisia to provide food and medical help was aimed at handling the refugee situation in north Africa but it was already preparing for a potential surge of immigrants to Italy.
More than 7,000 people from Tunisia have arrived in Italy since Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted as president in mid-January.
Here's footage from David Cameron addressing the Conservative spring forum on the situation in Libya yesterday.
"Our strategy is clear," Cameron said. "We will continue to intensify pressure on that regime.
"We will continue to state clearly that international justice has a long reach and a long memory, and those who commit crimes against humanity will not go unpunished."
"But let me repeat one thing," he finishes. "It is time for Colonel Gaddafi to go."
AFP reports, quoting a doctor in Misrata: "Twenty-one people, including a child, were killed and dozens wounded in Libya's rebel-held city of Misrata during clashes and shelling by Moamer Kadhafi's forces on Sunday."
NBC's Richard Engel tweets:
#libya.. Told qaddafi worried about attacking rebels in cities, doesn't want to kill many, upset tribes, wants to fight in desert
Misrata is still under the control of anti-Gaddafi forces, al-Jazeera is reporting.
Opposition spokesman Abdel Basset Abu Zouriq told the news channel: "Pro-Gaddafi forces are still somewhere outside the city, regrouping for future attacks."
He said that Misrata city was anti-Gaddafi in general and so government forces could only attack the city or invade it for few hours and then withdraw.
My colleague Paddy Allen has used satellite images of Libya to create this interactive guide to the key areas in the conflict between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces.
