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Libya has been in turmoil since 2011 after a civil war toppled long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi. The North African nation has been embroiled in conflict and violence since, which have taken a heavy toll on the countrys economy and population.

The latest round of fighting left thousands of people displaced and several others without any source of income. Amid the chaos, many migrants in a desperate bid to reach Europe find themselves at risk of being trapped or abused.

In Libya, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is working to help families find loved ones missing due to conflict, assist returnees, and help the countrys weakened health systems during the pandemic.

Daily News Egypt interviewed Jean-Nicolas Marti, the Head of the ICRC Libya Delegation, to find out about the organisations efforts to alleviate the suffering in the North African nation.

How does the ICRC assist people that have been displaced due to the conflict in Libya?

More than 20,000 people have returned to their homes near the former frontlines in the southern neighbourhoods of Tripoli. After over a year-long displacement, families came back to destroyed homes, scarce resources, and a lack of crucial services such as electricity, water, and health.

The ICRC has also been assisting displaced persons from Ain Zara; some of whom returned to the area to help cope with the situation.

Years of instability and fighting has greatly affected the socio-economic fabric; many Libyans, especially returnees, are struggling in the middle of a crumbling economy.

We have distributed food assistance to around 30,000 displaced people and returnees as well as provided returnees with basic household appliances.

The ICRC has also provided cash transfers to many families in dire need.

How does the ICRC assist with prisoner exchanges between warring parties in Libya?

We have offered our services to both parties the Libyan National Army (LNA) and the Government of National Accord (GNA) at the time and now the Government of National Unity (GNU). However, they have not picked up our effort; so, they had other mechanisms.

I think there were a few exchanges that have been made through the tribal leaders and elders that have met last year. There was also one exchange that was organised by the Joint Military Commission (JMC, 5+5), but for now, the ICRC has not been involved with prisoners exchange.

In 2019, we created a tripartite mechanism between the LNA, GNA, and the ICRC. The military officers from both sides met together with the ICRC to discuss emergency humanitarian assistance, like the evacuation of the war wounded, the repatriation of remains, and providing safe passage for convoys.

This continued through the conflict, but it is not active right now. We also met in November 2021 in Tunis to discuss missing persons, access to detainees, and teaching international humanitarian law to the army and security forces. This is the way we operate in Libya.

What role does the ICRC play to improve health conditions in Libya, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic?

We have a substantial health programme in Libya because the health system has been suffering from 10 years of conflict and a lack of maintenance. The health system in Libya is not strong enough, and after the pandemic, it has become quite difficult to cope with.

In terms of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICRC does not directly vaccinate Libyans, but we are training Libyan authorities on COVID-19 protective measures and helping distribute some protective materials to medical staff in prisons and detention centres.

These programmes are active in places where the ICRC has a presence, namely, Tripoli, Misrata, Benghazi, and Sabha in the south. Wherever we are, we provide some training for medical services and some training for the volunteers of the Libyan Red Crescent Society, which is our main partner in the country.

Regarding Sabha, can you elaborate on the humanitarian situation in the Libyan south and the ICRCs role?

For us, Sabha is a place where we have only Libyan nationals working for us, we also have international staff that only visit for a day, as the security situation does not allow us yet to have international staff fully based there. Therefore, we have less capacity to provide assistance. Also, access to the South is a bit difficult, the main problem there is related to criminal gangs and less control over these areas.

Fortunately, Sabha and the south are not densely populated, compared to Libyas coastal areas.

How do you view the upcoming elections in Libya?

This is the first ever presidential election to take place in the North African nation, we see the tension rising and we hope that these tensions can be absorbed so that no armed groups or any actors resort to violence, because civilians are going to pay the price as always.

The situation is very unpredictable, the situation today is not the same as it was a few days ago, so we are watching and are prepared for any scenarios.

It is in the DNA of the ICRC to talk to everybody, so we try to keep channels of communications open with all parties and actors.

How does the ICRC assist with the migrant situation in Libya?

We have a dialogue with the Libyan authorities, the EU, and member states on the humanitarian consequences of their migration policies. We do that bilaterally with all actors trying to demonstrate the fact that Libya is not a safe place for migrants to stay.

Also, we offer migrants the possibility of using the services of the ICRC when it comes to re-establishing family links; some of them have relatives that have been missing in the Mediterranean Sea, so we try to help them retrieve the bodies.

Moreover, migrants also benefit from the ICRC programmes in terms of support to hospitals and healthcare facilities.

In your opinion, what are the most urgent humanitarian needs in Libya and how can the international community assist in this regard?

There are two kinds of needs in Libya. Long-term needs, such as the health and water systems as well as the power network, which have been hardly maintained over the last few years. Therefore, the pressure on these systems is tremendous. The level of destruction in Southern Tripoli and downtown Benghazi is quite excessive. This will need long-term commitment from development actors to rebuild.

Next to that, Libya has some urgent needs in terms of the population trying to return to their homes and people who have lost their income due to losing the breadwinner of the family. So, there are several urgent needs for the people in Libya. I think that, at the moment, the most important thing for international actors is to try to decrease the tensions and avoid another phase of violence.

Violence always creates humanitarian consequences for the civilian population.

Can you elaborate on the ICRCs family reunification efforts in Libya?

It is a very complex process as we have very different situations. You have migrants who have lost contact with their families back home, which means that we have to contact the ICRC or the Red Crescent Society to ensure that they find the family over there and then establish links.

If it is a tracing request for people who have gone missing during the conflict, we contact the branch or Red Crescent in the specific area to try to locate them. Sometimes, we receive allegations of arrests, so we go to the detaining authorities and request information about these alleged detainees.

The whole process includes efforts from the ICRC and Red Crescent and partners from the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement all around the world who are at the receiving end of the migrant population.

Can you tell us about other ICRC programmes in Libya?

In Downtown Benghazi, there is a huge level of destruction. I have 25 years of ICRC experience in Afghanistan, Yemen, and many other places, but I have never seen this level of destruction.

Six years on, there have been no repairs and you can still see the destroyed water sewage system.

We have been working for months on a master plan to repair the sewage system in Benghazi. This sewage system will not be repaired by the ICRC alone, as it is already quite costly to draw the plan and make sure that it includes all parameters.

It will be up to us to bring it to the attention of the international financial institutions and developmental actors who would be willing to implement it with the Libyan authorities.

It is going to be a multiple-year project and it will be very costly; estimated at a few hundred million dollars.

We started getting in touch with international financiers like the World Bank, the French Development Agency, and the African Development Bank to promote the plan and share it once it is officially launched. It is expected to be ready by the end of 2022.

In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge that faces the ICRC in Libya?

For us, the biggest challenge is to ensure the safety of our staff in Libya, we do not walk with an armed escort, and we do not live in fortified compounds, we rely only on the acceptance of all the parties of the conflict.

It is working well for the moment, but the ICRC does not have a very long history in Libya. Therefore, it will take some time until we have the necessary guarantees for our staff to work.

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Libya needs long-term commitment from development actors to rebuild health, water, and power systems: ICRC Libya Chief - Daily News Egypt

Reliable sources informed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that a large group of the Syrian mercenaries in Libya received the second installment of their salaries, which were reduced by 300 dollars.

The total sums granted to Syrian mercenaries in Libya in January amounted to 900 dollars each, while 10,500 Turkish liras were handed over to their relatives in the countryside of Aleppo.

On the other hand, no date has been set for the resumption of the departure of Syrian mercenaries from Libya.

Activists in the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Syrian mercenaries supported by Turkey in Libya received part of their monthly salaries after seven months of non-payment, as Turkey granted the Syrian mercenaries, who did not receive their salaries during the past seven months, the dues of only three months.

Sources from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed that in the camps of Syrian mercenaries supported by Turkey in Libya, the increasing tension between the fighters and their leaders grew because of the miserable living conditions in the Tripoli camps, which turned into prisons after preventing fighters from leaving them, as commanders continue to deduct large sums of money from the fighters monthly salaries.

According to the Syrian Observatory, daily tensions take place between the Syrian mercenaries and their leaders, whether in Libya or in the areas controlled by the Turkish forces and their proxy factions in northern Aleppo, where the fighters send voice notes to their commanders, appealing to pay their wages and return them to Syria.

It is worth noting that there are approximately 7000 Syrian mercenaries supported by Turkey in Libya operating under the control of the various factions of the National Army.

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Syrian mercenaries in Libya receive less than half of their delayed salaries - 218 News

Episode 37 of Al-Ad Al-Aksi (The Countdown) Program shed light on the file of postponing the popular referendum on the constitution and its background, in addition to the return of the debate on the constitution after the postponement of the presidential elections, in light of the division of the political class between those calling for the imposition of the constitution on the referendum and those who reject this demand before holding presidential and parliamentary elections.

The two guests of the program were the members of the Constitution Drafting Assembly, Mustafa Dallaf and Mohammed Al-Agha.

Dallaf said that the referendum on the constitution is not possible today, in light of the existing threats that the Head of the Electoral Commission spoke about, noting that the Electoral Commission is an executive body, not a legislative one, and its report confirms the inability to hold a referendum.

He added that the 1951 constitution is one of the possible alternatives at the present time, and is the first constitutional base on which the country was founded.

Dallaf concluded by saying that the Head of the HNEC must meet with the commission before he forms any committee, and he should not choose them personally and temperamentally.

Al-Agha said that the constitution today is ink on paper, and whoever owns arms is the one who leads the country, stressing that any military force controlling one of the regions can stop the draft constitution.

Al-Agha added that external countries are the ones who decide the course of matters and control the course of the political scene, not Libyans.

Al-Agha stressed that the Communication Committee, which meets with the House of Representatives regarding the constitution, is a committee that has no legitimacy, and what it is doing is a coup against the work of the Constitution Drafting Assembly.

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What are the implications of postponing constitutional referendum in Libya? - 218 News

When the defence urged the jury to be on the right side of history, he won the admiration of historian David Olusoga and Labour MP Clive Lewis. But I wonder how many other members of the public think it is okay for Britains legal representatives to allow their function to be so dramatically changed on the basis of claims of perceived hurt and hate? You would hope that historian Olusoga would be sensitive to the fact that in the past, when people claim to be on the right side of history, things have not always ended well.

Egged on and flattered by a culture where feelings trump reason, and victimhood is the preferred currency for social status and material gains, Jake Skuse, Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford and Sage Willoughby might well feel like they are heroes in some fantasy liberation struggle.

But the verdict shows that acts, which if committed by others at different times, or different others today, would be recognised and condemned as criminal, are now resoundingly praised by the law itself.

Whether you think this is progress or regress, it shows that todays self-styled warriors have little in common with genuinely inspiring radicals and freedom fighters of the past. The likes of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Mandela or, more recently, people of Syria, faced violent oppression and repression in real life.

If statues were toppled it was part of a broader political struggle where the stakes were higher than hurt feelings.

Symbolic gestures can be important, but not when they are substitutes for politics itself. People who disagree with their politics can still find them admirable.

I doubt the same could be said for the Colston Four.

Parents often see a budding Picasso in their toddlers drawings, this is understandable, if mildly irritating.

Now lawyers are joining the queue of adults who encourage the young to see adolescent rage as political radicalism - and they are doing no-one any favours.

They only fuel a validation of victimhood and feelings over reasoned politics.

This is not a good basis for forging the kind of democratic politics and humane culture we need today.

It also encourages an extension of adolescence, witness the ages of the Colston Four (33, 30, 26 and 22 respectively).

Patrick Vernon conceded that while the toppling of Colstons statue was essentially performative, it opens an important national debate.

His view was that had the Colston Four been black, the verdict would have been very different.

This may have been likely 20 or 30 years ago, but today, his conclusion misses an important change in the meaning and function of anti-racism.

In the past, anti-racism was largely part of a struggle of people across lines of colour, united as equal citizens working out how to ensure the democratic ideals of equality and freedom were fulfilled.

It appealed to peoples sense of universal justice and encouraged social solidarity.

An accepted tenet of older anti-racism was that individuals are moral equals, even if our social status and political views differ.

Today, anti-racisms meaning and function is very different.

It is now an ideological weapon of choice for corporate HR departments and the elites who have power in our public social, cultural and academic institutions to render majority beliefs and opinions morally invalid: tainted by their association with a one-sided representation of Britains past.

Today anti-racism sees Britains history and cultural tradition as gravestones dead and silent whose only influence can be moral putrefaction.

This is deeply disempowering because without recourse to cultural and intellectual inheritances, it is harder to get our bearings, and make better judgements about the world we have in common today.

When QC Liam Walker confidently claimed that the continuing existence of Colstons statue amounted to continued veneration of his dastardly deeds, and the defendants claimed it was a hate crime, the tacit message is that if you dont hate the statue in the way we do, you can only be racist.

Who are the haters here?

Most people I know are capable of a wider range of responses, not to mention self-control, than the learned QC or the passionate faux radicals credit them with.

When Skuse claimed I knew I was in the right...everyone wanted the same thing, it suggested he cannot imagine an opinion different to his own.

Like Christina Jordan, a former South West MEP and first generation immigrant from Malaysia, for example, who said: I dont need the Sages and Milos of our country toppling a 127-year-old statue because they think they should protect me from hurt feelings.

Protection and patronage are not freedom and equality.

Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert is Head of Education atDon't Divide Us. They describe themselves as "people who are taking a stand against the divisive obsession with peoples racial identity".

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Brilliant expos of the moral wasteland of Britain's culture wars is a must read COMMENT - Express

Over the weekend, Washington Post business editor Lori Montgomery tweeted, then deleted, criticism of a column that called Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback BenRoethlisberger a real jackass. The only interesting thing about Drew Magarys article, Montgomery, a native of Butler County, Pennsylvania (north of Pittsburgh), tweeted, was how easily disproven and completely FOS [full of shit] it is.

The column addressed, among other incidents, accusations of sexual assault that women have made against Roethlisberger. And with her Friday night tweet, Montgomery kicked a hornets nest that has grown inside the Posts internal culture for some time now.

A little more than an hour after Montgomery tweeted her defense of Roethlisberger, Post national political reporter Felicia Sonmez screenshotted it and noted that Magarys column referenced facts the Post reported as well.

And here is where things get complex. After Kobe Bryant died in January 2020, Sonmez tweeted a link to a Daily Beast article about Bryant settling a sexual-assault lawsuit. She faced intense backlash online and was suspended by the Postformer Executive Editor Marty Baron told her she was hurting the publication. Staffers and the Post Guild protested the suspension, and the paper, whose social media policies date to 2011, soon reinstated her.

Sonmez wasnt the only staffer to run afoul of the Posts unclear rules about social media. Former Post reporter Wesley Lowery was chastised by managementfor criticizing an article by New York Times journalist Jeremy Peters, a rule he said in a response was broken daily, by many members of the newsroom. He has since left the Post.

Both of these events evince a simmering culture war in many newsrooms: Broadly speaking, some journalists chafe at newspapers traditionally top-down cultures, while others can be aghast at what they view as attention-seeking antics. (These schisms frequently break along generational lines: I reported last year that as he searched for Barons replacement, Post Publisher Fred Ryan asked candidates about how theyd keep the newsroom under control.)

At the Post, Sonmezs suspension raised furtherquestions not only about her career but also about whether the Post is a workplace where people who have survived traumaticexperiences like sexual assault can continue to do their jobs and feel safe and supported. Unlike Lowery, Sonmez stayed at the Post, and last July she sued her employer, saying that after she revealed to higher ups that she had been the victim of sexual assault, they had banned her from any coverage that touched on the subject. Among the Post brass Sonmez named as defendants in the suit: Lori Montgomery.

The suit says Montgomery told Ms. Sonmez that she was always taught that a woman should just say no if a man tries to assault her. Montgomery was at the time the Posts deputy national editor; Sally Buzbee, who replaced Baron as executive editor last year, named Montgomery editor of the business desk in late July. The Post has moved to dismiss Sonmezs case.

Others named in Sonmezs lawsuit have been since been promoted as well, including Cameron Barr, who was one of the Posts managing editors and in October wasnamed Buzbees second-in-command. Barr and Steven Ginsberg, who was national editor and Sonmezs boss, both applied for the executive editor gig but lost out to Buzbee. Last week the Post named Ginsberg one of its managing editors. Tracy Grant, the managing editor for standards who was also named in Sonmezs suit, requested a return to writing, Buzbee wrote in a memo this past October.

So! Given this significant volume of backstory, why on earth would Montgomery stir the pot with, of all things, a tweet that criticized a non-Post journalists article, which involved allegations of sexual assault? Montgomery apparently thought better of her original post the next day; she wrote at lunchtime Saturday that shed deleted the tweet and did not intend to question the validity of the accusations against Roethlisberger. Montgomery wrote that she has been sexually assaulted myself and deeply regret my poorly-framed tweet. (Montgomery has since locked her account.)

In an email, Post spokesperson Kristine Coratti Kelly writes that Montgomerys tweet was inappropriate, and the issue has been addressed internally. The papers social media policy will be updated once the Post hires a new standards editor, she writes, and will be done with staff input.Sonmez declined to comment to Washingtonian, but she posted thisthread over the weekend:

On Monday the Posts Guild sent a note to members that called Montgomerys tweet unacceptable, irresponsible and harmful and said the unions leadership has asked the masthead to address this incident with staff and take concrete steps to make sure survivors feel safe and not silenced. The note also encourages Post employees to ask Buzbee about the incident.

As it happens, in a separate memo sent to staffers Monday, Buzbee announced three town halls to be held on Zoom on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to discuss news goals for 2022, ambitions for the future, how we hope to keep staff/team communication strong in the continued pandemic, and anything else you want to discuss. There will be time for questions during the meetings, Buzbee writes. It seems likely that Montgomerys tweet may come up.

This article has been updated.

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A Washington Post Editor's "Inappropriate" Tweet Is Fanning the Culture Wars Inside the Paper - Washingtonian