Tripoli’s Mitiga International Airport which was shut down earlier this year due to fighting in the Libyan capital is set to reopen later this week, a senior official of the Accord Government announced on Tuesday.
The Transportation minister of the internationally recognized government, Milad Matoug told a press conference that the airport in question will be considered open for operation in the next few days.
“It is only procedural matters that are holding it” Matoug said in the presence of the UN envoy to Libya Ghassan Salama and Interior minister Fathi Bash Agha.
Salam said that they toured the civilian airport of Maitiga and were satisfied that its was free of military activities.
The Interior minister Fathi Bash Agha said Mitiga International Airport is ready for air navigation, adding that measures will be taken by his government to protect it from bombings.
Mitiga airport which was the only functioning airport in the capital was closed at the beginning of September after it was targeted by air strikes and bombed apparently by remnants of the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Hafter.
The Tripoli International Airport, the only other airport in the capital has been intermittently closed since 2015 after bearing the brunt of the fighting between feuding militias following the end of Muammar Gaddafi’s rule.
Since then the airport in the district of Migita has been the city’s main air transport outlet to the outside world.
Under Hafter’s command forces of the LNA had since April invaded Tripoli from the east of the country in a bid to wrest the capital from the control of troops loyal to the Accord Government.
The invaders have been accused of targeting civilian areas, killing over two thousand non-belligerants, leaving others wounded and hundreds of thousands displaced.
SS/as/APA