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Anti-Gaddafi fighters capture Sirte's port

Gaddafi vows martyrdom; humanitarian crisis looming

AFP, Sirte
Anti-Gaddafi fighters overran Sirte's port yesterday, scoring a strategic victory in their battle for control of the defeated Libyan leader's birthplace, his loyalists' most important bastion.
In their other main redoubt of Bani Walid, however, Muammar Gaddafi's forces went back on the offensive after loyalist radio in the desert town broadcast a message from the fugitive strongman rallying resistance to a weeks-long siege by National Transitional Council (NTC) forces.
Hundreds of fearful civilians have fled Sirte, a Mediterranean city 360 kilometres east of TOpoli, as the new regime's forces have closed in from east, south and west.
And as the NTC troops zeroed in on the centre of the sprawling city where Gaddafi diehards are believed to be holed
up, the threat of intense street fighting hung over the remaining residents.
"There were clashes in the night and we now are controlling the port," said Commander Mustafa bin Dardef of the NTC's Zintan Brigade.
NTC troops said that fighting raged yesterday morning around Sirte's Al-Batahady University where they had come under sniper fire from proGaddafi forces hidden on the campus.
In Gaddafi's radio message, a transcript of which was carried by a loyalist website, the toppled strongman told his supporters that he was still fighting on the ground and was ready to die a martyr.
"Heroes have resisted and fallen as martyrs and we too are awaiting martyrdom," Gaddafi said.
The toppled despot hailed the fierce resistance put up by Bani Walid, which had been a major recruiting ground for his regime's elite army units.
Fleeing residents spoke of dwindling supplies of food and water and said Gaddafi forces were trying to prevent people from leaving, while doctors warned of a growing humanitarian crisis.
"There's no food, no electricity, we were eating just bread," said Saraj al-Tuweish, who got out with his extended family of some 60 people yesterday.
On Monday, some 2,000 fleeing civilians registered on the western coast road out of Sirte alone, but by midday (1000 GMT) yesterday just 30 families had got out.
The collapse of the mains supply has left residents without access to clean drinking water, triggering an epidemic of water-borne diseases.
"We have medicines but no nurses to treat the constant flow of patients, mainly children, suffering from vomiting and gastrointestinal diseases," said a Ukrainian working in Libya for 8 years.