Concerns over Bulgarians Safety in Benghazi Run High

World | February 20, 2011, Sunday // 18:50
Bulgaria: Concerns over Bulgarians Safety in Benghazi Run High Tripoli protested against the pardoning of the Bulgarian medics, claiming it breaches the prisoner transfer agreement signed in 1984, based on which the medics were repatriated. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

The safety of hundreds of Bulgarians in the Libyan city of Benghazi might be at risk after troops launched a brutal crackdown on protesters, leading to many casualties, analysts in Sofia have warned.

"I am afraid that a big part of the Bulgarian medics, working in Libya, are located in Benghazi. This is a city, whose citizens associate every Bulgarian national with the AIDS trial against the Bulgarian medics and Col Muammar Gaddafi," Kiriyak Tsonev, the first specialist in Bulgarian diplomacy on the Arab world, told Darik radio.

"The worst case scenario is for the Bulgarians there to become targets of the hatred Libyans felt for the Bulgarians medics in the HIV trial," he added, referring to the Bulgarians charged with deliberately infecting more than 400 children with the HIV virus, who were subsequently transferred to Bulgaria and pardoned.

Asked whether Bulgarians nationals in Benghazi should be repatriated, the expert recommended that the Foreign Affairs Ministry follow very carefully the development of the situation there and take decisions on daily basis.

More than 200 people are known to have died in Benghazi and another 900 have been injured, according to figures that emerged on Sunday.

The most bloody attacks were reported over the weekend, when a funeral procession was said to have come under machine-gun and heavy weapons fire.

One doctor, speaking amid the sound of fresh gunfire on Sunday, told the BBC that "a real massacre" had happened.

Human Rights Watch says at least 173 people have been killed in Libya since demonstrations began on Wednesday.

Benghazi, the country's second city, has been a leading focus of protests against four decades of rule by Col Muammar Gaddafi.

The city is also the scene, where the tragedy of six Bulgarian medics, who spent more than eight years jailed in Libya in a travesty HIV trial, unfolded.

The medics were sentenced to death in Libya on charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with the HIV virus, but the involvement of the Sarkozy couple in the final stages of the talks secured their release and subsequent pardoning in Sofia.

Tripoli protested against the pardoning of the medics, claiming it breaches the prisoner transfer agreement signed in 1984, based on which the medics were repatriated. The country threatened to review its ties with Bulgaria.

Libya is one of several countries in the region to have seen pro-democracy campaigns since the fall of long-time Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was forced from power on 11 February.

The Crisis Center at the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued over the weekend recommendations for Bulgarian citizens to limit or refrain from traveling to Libya, North Africa and Yemen, amid violent protests across the region.

The sternest warning is for Yemen, where protests are gathering force. The Foreign Ministry advises nationals to refrain from travelling to the country.

For Tunisia and Libya, the Crisis Center recommends Bulgarians who are present there to stay at home and avoid public places, although it notes that the cituation in Tunisia is getting calmer.

The Ministry specifically warned citizens to desist from travelling to eastern Libya, where the most intense tensions are underway.

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Tags: Muammar Gaddafi, security forces, demonstrators, protesters, Libya, Benghazi, Tripoli, medics, Bulgarians

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