Clashes between militias rock a city in western Libya. At least one civilian was killed, officials said

Clashes between government-aligned militias rocked a coastal town in western Libya, trapping families in their homes and forcing the closure of schools on Saturday, officials said. At least one civilian was killed.

The latest bout of violence in the chaos-plagued Mediterranean nation erupted early Saturday in the town of Zawiya, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, health authorities said.

The Health Ministry’s emergency and rescue service reported that at least one civilian was killed and at least 22 others were injured in the clashes, which occurred mainly in the southern part of the city. Several families were evacuated during a brief lull in fighting, it said.

The Libyan Red Crescent, which helped evacuate the trapped families, appealed to the parties involved to open safe corridors for the remaining families in the area where the fighting took place.

The Health Ministry said clashes had subsided by midday Saturday thanks to tribal elders in the city. “The situation is now calm” in southern Zawiya, it said.

The conflicting parties are allied with the government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, which is based in the capital Tripoli. A spokesman for Dbeibah’s government did not respond to a request for comment.

The cause of the fighting was not immediately clear. However, local media reported that clashes broke out when security forces tried to arrest a man suspected of murder earlier this year.

The clashes also came after security authorities found three young men and a woman dead on the side of the city’s road. The circumstances of her murder were not initially clear.

The fighting was the latest wave of violence in western Libya, which is controlled by a series of lawless militias allied with Dbeibah’s government. In August last year, at least 45 people were killed in 24 hours of fighting between rival militias in Tripoli.

The oil-rich North African country has been torn by conflict since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The country has been divided for years between rival governments in the east and west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. The country is currently ruled by Dbehiba’s government in Tripoli and Prime Minister Ossama Hammad’s government in eastern Libya.

In the eastern city of Benghazi, lawmaker Ibarhim al-Darai went missing after a robbery at his home earlier this week, the Hamad government’s Interior Ministry said late Friday. The ministry said it was investigating al-Darsi’s disappearance.

Al-Darsi’s disappearance was reminiscent of the case of another MP, Sigam Sergiwa, who was kidnapped in Benghazi in July 2019.

According to Amnesty International, Sergiwa was abducted from her home by gunmen in military uniforms on July 17, hours after she criticized a failed 2019 offensive by powerful commander Khalifa Hifter’s eastern Libyan forces to capture Tripoli.

Benghazi is the stronghold of Hifter’s forces, which control eastern and southern Libya and support Hammad’s government.