Tripoli, the Libyan capital is practically without a functioning airport after the one in Mitiga, 8km from the city centre was shut down due to aggravated insecurity.
The deputy minister of Transport Hisham Abu Shkewat said in a statement seen by APA on Tuesday that all airlines companies are now operating from the airport in the city of Miserata, 200km east of Tripoli.
Shkewat said due to growing insecurity in and around the Libyan capital, the major airlines have stopped operating from Mitiga after its airport was bombed last Saturday.
A plane carrying pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia was reportedly targeted, but nobody was hurt.
The attack on the airport which is eight kilometers from the city centre, is the 21 since the start of the conflict over Tripoli on April 4th the official said.
He said the situation has deteriorated so badly that airlines and the airport workers had asked to stop working in Mitiga airport.
The UN Mission in Libya said the latest attack on Mitiga airport is a direct threat to the lives of civilian passengers and warned that its perpetrators will face justice.
The Mitiga airport was the only functioning aviation transport facility in operation in the Libyan capital after the Tripoli International Airport, the country’s busiest and biggest was forced to shut down.
Since the uprising in Libya in 2011, it had been intermittently shut down as the instability in the country worsened.
In 2018, the airport was abandoned for the Mitiga International Airport which was used for flights to and from the capital.
Troops of the Libya National Army under Khalifa Hafter had been in control of the Tripoli International Airport.
Hafter last April launched a full scale offensive to retake Tripoli but after five months of intermittent warfare, both sides have fought to a stalemate.
A journalist with the African Press Agency said the misfortune of Tripoli residents has exacerbated.
“It used to be no electricity, no water, no petrol, no money and now they will have to live with the consequences of having no functioning airport” he said.
SS/as/APA