Libyans target Blacks amid mercenary claims

Reports of angry Libyans targeting Black people are doing the rounds globally as several sub-Saharan governments deny sending mercenaries to fight on Muammar Gaddafi's side.

The Blacks are reportedly being targeted by anti-Gaddafi protestors who accuse them (Blacks) of siding with the strongman Libyans are up against.

News portal Maltatoday quoted UNHCR in Geneva as becoming "increasingly concerned" about the dangers for civilians inadvertently caught up in the mounting violence in Libya, especially asylum-seekers and refugees.

"We have no access at this time to the refugee community. Over the past months, we have been trying to regularise our presence in Libya, and this has constrained our work," Melissa Fleming, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, was quoted as telling journalists in Geneva.

Somalilandpress reported: "In areas where forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been forced out, many angry mobs are targeting Black Africans after reports that the government was using “African mercenaries” to repress the revolt was transmitted by Western media".

For long, Libya has been a gateway for young Africans seeking a better life in Europe and many of them have been stranded in the North African nation.

Refugee and migrant workers from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Senegal, Chad, Nigeria and other sub-Sahara countries have came under attack according to human right groups.

Twisting remarks

Zimbabwe said rumours that its soldiers were among foreign forces propping up embattled Libyan leader were false.

The country’s Defence minister Emmerson Mnangwagwa Friday accused private media of twisting remarks he made in Parliament after he was asked to comment on reports that Zimbabweans soldiers were fighting in Libya.

Zimbabwe's privately-owned NewsDay had carried a story headlined “Zim army in Libya” based on questions put to Mr Mnangagwa in Parliament.

The paper said the minister did not hesitate to respond to questions from MPs about Zimbabwean soldiers in Libya, but his answer did not specifically relate to their enquiries.

“That is a mischievous way of twisting the truth. For someone who just saw the headline might think we have our soldiers in Libya,” Mr Mnangwagwa told the state-owned Herald.

The government in Nairobi has also denied that Kenyan mercenaries were being used to execute Gaddafi's brutal crackdown.

The denial was a reaction to claims by Gaddafi's former Chief of Protocol, Nouri Al Misrahi, in an interview with the Al Jazeera broadcasting network, that Kenyan mercenaries were among foreigners helping besieged Libyan leader fight off an uprising.

The story was further lent credence by a Libyan military defector quoted in the UK newspaper - The Guardian - listing Kenya as one of the recruitment grounds for thousands of African mercenaries propping up the regime.