Libyan city’s sole children’s hospital faces closure

By Seif al-Trabulsi

BENGHAZI, Libya

Turmoil in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi has left the war-battered city’s only children’s hospital on the verge of closure.

The hospital currently faces severe shortages of both medical supplies and qualified doctors -- a state of affairs that has led to several recent fatalities among young patients.

"Due to chronic shortages of both medicine and staff, the number of child fatalities in the blood disease, cancer and kidney-disease wards has risen," hospital spokesperson Hoda al-Kwiri told Anadolu Agency.

She went on to lament that the hospital’s numerous appeals for help had gone largely unanswered.

"We’re in dire need of medical equipment that would allow us to detect tumors and provide the right medication," al-Kwiri said.

"Unless we receive urgent help, the hospital will be forced to close due to the ongoing lack of medicine and equipment," she warned.

Libya has been locked in a state of violence and turmoil since 2011, when a bloody uprising ended with the ouster and death of longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of government -- one in Tobruk and another in capital Tripoli -- each of which boasts its own military capacity and legislative assembly.

Late last year, Libya’s rival governments signed a UN-backed agreement to establish a unity government in an effort to resolve the country’s six-year political standoff.

*Anadolu Agency Correspondent Mohamed Sabry contributed to this report from Cairo