Libya

18 Dec 2020; MEMO: The Libyan Red Crescent yesterday recovered the bodies of four children whose boat sank at sea on Wednesday.

Hassan Al-Bayi of the Libyan Red Crescent told AFP that the organisation was "informed [Wednesday] of a boat that was sinking on the high sea with 30 people on board in the Zawiya area."

He added that rescue workers discovered three of the children's bodies near Zawiya, around 45 kilometres from Tripoli, and the fourth a few kilometres further west.

16 Dec 2020; MEMO: The Libyan army said Tuesday that a plane carrying Syrian mercenaries landed in Benghazi to support Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar.

In a statement to Anadolu Agency, Abdul Hadi Dara, the spokesman for the Sirte and Jafra operation of the Libyan armed forces, said they "received solid information of mercenaries on board a plane that belongs to [Syrian-owned] Cham Wings Airlines which arrived from Syria to Benina airport."

12 Dec 2020; MEMO:  The spokesman for the General Command of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) Major General Ahmed Al-Mesmari announced the release of a Turkish ship on Thursday, after its seizure five days earlier for its presence off the coast of the Ras Al-Hilal area in Al-Jabal Al-Akhdar.

11 Dec 2020; MEMO:  Two Russians, detained in Libya on espionage charges in 2019, were released on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, Anadolu Agency reports.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Zakharova said the Russian side is "satisfied" with the decision of the Libyan authorites to free Maxim Shugaley and Samer Hasan Ali Sueyfan, and thanked everyone who assisted in their release.

05 Dec 2020; MEMO:  The media centre for Operation Volcano of Rage has issued a statement by the Defence Minister of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) Salah El-Din Al-Namroush in which he announced the signing of a military cooperation agreement with Italy.

TRIPOLI, Dec 4 (NNN-Xinhua) — The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Thursday condemned a deadly attack on school children in the city of Al Ajaylat, some 80 km west of the capital Tripoli.

“UNSMIL strongly condemns the brutal attack against children as they were leaving school in the city of Al Ajaylat, which led to the killing of a 16-year-old boy and injured two other children, all in their school uniforms,” UNSMIL said in a statement.

03 Dec 2020; MEMO:  Several US company owners have expressed their eagerness to invest technical expertise and financial resources to help rebuild the infrastructure and economy in Libya. This came during a virtual meeting held on Tuesday by the American Chamber of Commerce in Libya (AmCham Libya), with the participation of Washington's Ambassador to Tripoli Richard Norland, according to a statement issued by the US embassy.

27 Nov 2020; MEMO: One month after the Libyan military agreement, General Khalifa Haftar's militia has shown no indication of implementing the accord's conditions, which require the evacuation of mercenaries from the frontlines of the Sirte-Jafra axis.

TRIPOLI, Nov 20 (NNN-Xinhua) — Libya wishes to increase oil and gas trade with Spain, Mustafa Sanalla, chairman of the state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) of Libya said.

Sanalla made this remark during a meeting with Javier Garcia-Larrache, Spanish ambassador to Libya, according to a statement issued by the NOC.

“We are happy with our partnership with the Spanish company Repsol and there has been a commercial exchange between Libya and Spain in the oil and its derivatives field that exceeded 7.5 billion dollars during the last three years,” Sanalla said.

16 Nov 2020; MEMO:Two military aircrafts carrying Turkish special forces arrived in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on Friday in preparation for the upcoming visit of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported.

The paper quoted "informed" sources as saying that Erdogan will visit the Turkish forces in the city of Misrata, in western Libya, who support the internationally-recognised Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).