London: Britain has donated 3 million pounds
(USD 4.9 million) to the Red Cross to spend on urgent
humanitarian aid in Libya, the Department for International
Development (DfID) said on Saturday.
"The aid package will help with basic services,
particularly providing food for just under 700,000 people but
also providing very strong medical support for 5,000 who have
been wounded," said International Development Minister Andrew
Mitchell.
"We`ve seen the most terrible scenes from Tripoli
hospitals and we are moving directly now to assist the
International Red Cross in tackling that," he told BBC
television.
A DfID spokesman told a news agency the money would be used to buy
medicine and food and send teams to conflict areas in need
across Libya as rebels battle to free the country from the
grip of leader Muammar Gaddafi.
"They decide how to use it on a day-to-day basis but a
lot of the focus is going to be on Tripoli at the moment," he
said.
With fighting continuing in a conflict that the rebels`
chief says has killed more than 20,000 people, the horror of
the situation was highlighted on Friday at a hospital in
Tripoli.
Eighty putrefying corpses were found -- apparently
patients who had died for lack of treatment because doctors
had fled for fear of the pro-Gaddafi snipers in the
neighbourhood.
PTI
