(Update: upgrades casualties)
Tripoli, Aug 16 (EFE).- At least 55 people have died in armed clashes between rival Libyan factions in Tripoli, medical officials said on Wednesday.
The violence, which erupted on Monday, has resulted in over 140 injuries.
A ceasefire brokered by the national unity government took effect on Wednesday morning.
A spokesman for the Center for Emergency Medicine and Support, Malek Marsit, did not clarify whether the dead were civilians or militiamen.
The clashes, which began on Monday night after the leader of the 444 Brigade Mahmoud Hamza was detained by the rival Special Deterrence Force, mark the year’s most severe outbreak of violence.
Hundreds of families had to be evacuated from the conflict-affected zones, which extended from the southern areas of the capital to the outskirts of downtown Tripoli.
The Ministry of Education suspended secondary school examinations in the affected areas.
The bloodshed follows a period of relative calm as Libyan political actors work towards general elections and returning stability to a country that has been at war since dictator Muammar Gadhafi’s ouster and death in 2011. EFE
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