15.12.11
Thousands of former supporters of Muammar Gaddafi who fled their town after revenge attacks will try to return next week, their leaders said on Wednesday, risking a confrontation with their neighbors.
Tawargha, a town about 250 km east of Tripoli, was ransacked and looted, and its residents forced to flee, in one of the worst cases of reprisals against Gaddafi loyalists since the Libyan leader was overthrown three months ago.
Elders from the town decided at a meeting in Tripoli that all the residents -- who they said number 30,000 and are scattered in camps and makeshift accommodation across Libya -- will go home on December 20.
International aid workers at the meeting in Tripoli said a return to Tawargha next week could be risky.
"If you were to go on the 20th, neither your safety nor your dignity can be protected by us," Joann Kingsley of the Danish Refugee Council told the meeting.
"December 20 is only six days away. To organize the return of thousands of people to a destroyed place after a war takes much more time than six days."
Read the full story on Reuters.com
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