Sirte: A rocket killed two children on Saturday as their family joined the quickening exodus of civilians during a two-day window to flee the battle for Muammar Gaddafi`s hometown of Sirte, a Libyan medic said. Some of the hundreds of people escaping the city said there had been civilian casualties there when residential buildings were hit, either by artillery fire from besieging new regime forces or by NATO air strikes.
National Transitional Council (NTC) forces besieged the Ouagadougou Conference Centre today, a show piece venue in Sirte where Gaddafi hosted the launch of the African Union. A large force of some 100 vehicles, including anti-tank guns and multiple missile launchers, entered the city from the south at around midday and surrounded the compound. "We are surrounding the Ouagadougou Centre," fighter Osama Blao told agency as he returned from the front line.
Several NTC fighters said the Red Crescent had asked them to stop firing because Red Cross officials were inspecting a hospital close to the centre. Some of the fighters pulled back after two hours of intense clashes, during which loyalist forces used snipers and mortar fire. The coast road west to Libya`s third-largest city of Misrata was clogged with convoys of fleeing civilians, an AFP correspondent reported. The two children killed "were torn to pieces," said Ahmed Abu AUD, a field medic on the western side of Sirte. "They collected the body parts in bags."
PTI