Tripoli, March 26: In Tripoli later on Friday, a Health Ministry official Khaled Omar said a "total of 114 Libyans" have died and 445 were injured in the international airstrikes, but he did not provide a breakdown of how many were soldiers or civilians.US and British officials insisted civilians have been spared and retort that the Libyan leader has engineered his own atrocities.
Libyan government officials on Friday took foreign journalists to a house purportedly hit by coalition missiles during a raid on Wednesday night, in a bid to provide evidence that civilians are becoming victims of a bombing campaign against the forces of government of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.
A convoy of buses took the journalists 33 kilometres (20.5 miles) outside Tripoli to a farming community near the town of Tajoura, an area with multiple military bases and government compounds along the Mediterranean shore.Two military bases on the way had clearly been hit, their buildings twisted and damaged.
The small farm where the bus finally stopped was badly damaged - the windows were smashed in, the television toppled over.Plaster was everywhere on the floor, but the painted walls were intact.It was the home of Rajab Mohammed, who said the bomb hit at the base of the palm just outside. Next to the palm was a pit, the size of a large beach ball.
There were also unexplained bullet holes on the outside of the house.Local resident Rasam Rajav, 21-years-old, said the noise of the explosions had frightened the children and elderly living in the compound.
"After what happened yesterday we don't know. If we go out, we are afraid if something will fall down on us. If we go inside, we will miss many things," he said, speaking in Arabic, his words translated by a Libyan government official who was escorting the journalists.
The government has tried to depict the bombing campaign as targeting civilians and damaging homes and businesses, but has provided little evidence that such things are occurring.AP
