Libya forces kill funeral mourners

Moammar Gaddafi’s forces fired on mourners leaving a funeral for protesters today, killing at least 15 people and wounding scores more as the regime tried to quell calls for an end to the ruler’s 42-year grip on power.

Libyan protesters were back on the street for the fifth straight day, but Gaddafi has taken a hard line toward the dissent that has ripped through the Middle East and swept him up with it.

Government forces also wiped out a protest encampment and clamped down on internet service throughout Libya.

Snipers fired on thousands of people gathered in the eastern city of Benghazi, a focal point of the unrest, to mourn 35 protesters who were shot on Friday, a hospital official said.

A hospital official said 15 people were killed, including one man who was apparently hit in the head with an anti-aircraft missile. The weapons apparently were used to intimidate the population.

“Many of the dead and the injured are relatives of doctors here,” he said. “They are crying and I keep telling them to please stand up and help us.”

The official said many people were shot in the head and chest. The hospital was overwhelmed and people were streaming to the facility to donate blood.

Before today’s violence, Human Rights Watch had estimated at least 84 people have been killed.

Just after 2am local time in Libya, the US-based Arbor Networks security company detected a total cessation of online traffic in the North African country. Protesters confirmed they could not get online.

Information is tightly controlled in Libya, where journalists cannot work freely, and activists this week have posted videos on the internet that have been an important source of images of the revolt.

Other information about the protests has come from opposition activists in exile. Egyptian officials briefly tried to cut internet service during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak on February 11, but that move was unsuccessful.

About 5am local time on Saturday, special forces attacked hundreds of protesters, including lawyers and judges, camped out in front of the courthouse in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city.

“They fired tear gas on protesters in tents and cleared the areas after many fled carrying the dead and the injured,” one protester said.

Doctors in Benghazi said that 35 bodies had been brought to the hospital following attacks by security forces backed by militias, on top of more than a dozen killed the day before.

Standing in front of Jalaa Hospital morgue, a witness said that the bodies bore wounds from being shot “directly at the head and the chests”.

Residents of the city set up neighbourhood patrols on Saturday, after police left the streets.

“We don’t see a single policeman in the streets, not even traffic police,” a lawyer in Benghazi said.

People regarded the disappearance of the police as an ominous sign, fearing that pro-government forces would soon follow up the encampment raid with house-to-house attacks.

Switzerland-based Libyan activist Fathi al-Warfali said that several other activists had been detained including Abdel-Hafez Gougha, a well-known organiser who was being held after security forces stormed his house in a night raid.

Gaddafi is facing the biggest popular uprising of his autocratic reign, with much of the action in the country’s impoverished east.

The nation has huge oil reserves but poverty is a significant problem. US diplomats have said in newly leaked memos that Gaddafi’s regime seems to neglect the east intentionally, letting unemployment and poverty rise to weaken opponents there.