10 Killed, 20 Wounded in Libyan Clashes at Raslanuf
Up to 10 people were killed and more than 20 wounded in clashes between Libyan rebels and loyalists of MoammAr Gadhafi in the oil town of Ras Lanuf, doctors said Saturday.
"There are 10 dead," Doctor Awad al-Quwairi told Agence France Presse at a hospital in Brega, the next oil town along the Mediterranean coast towards the rebel-held east from where the fighting took place on Friday.
Casualties were transferred for treatment to the larger town of Ajdabiya and even the main rebel-held city of Benghazi. In Ajdabiya, a doctor earlier put the death toll at eight.
"Well, we moved two bodies there today," said Quwairi, by way of explaining the higher death toll. Outside the hospital, a group of rebels appeared nervous about the prospect of follow-up air strikes from regime fighters.
"We heard there's an airplane coming," said one as they scattered about 30 meters from Brega hospital, on the highway heading towards Ras Lanuf.
Doctor Ahmad Burtima at Ajdabiya hospital said 21 people had been brought in with injuries from the fighting, including two or three moved to Benghazi in a critical condition.
An AFP reporter late Friday saw rebels in control of Ras Lanuf, positioned outside the oil compound, army barracks, police station and residential quarter, celebrating an apparent victory over Kadhafi forces.
Some of the injured rebels being treated in Ajdabiya told AFP they had been heavily outnumbered and under-equipped compared to the loyalists.
Meanwhile, The death toll from explosions at an arms dump in an area held by Libyan rebels reached 27 Saturday, after a doctor said his hospital had received eight bodies.
"We have eight killed by the explosion at the Rajma military base as well as more than 20 injured," Imad Talahma, a neurosurgeon at Benghazi's medical city.
Sources at the city's other two main hospitals had earlier given a combined toll of 19 dead from the twin blasts at the munitions depot just outside Benghazi, the main rebel-held city in eastern Libya, on Friday.
Source: Agence France Presse
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