By Moataz al-Majbari
TRIPOLI (AA) – At least five people were killed on Tuesday — including the aide of a parliamentary speaker — when a helicopter crashed in eastern Libya, according to a local military official.
The aircraft went down in the Al-Makhili district between the eastern cities of Tobruk and Derna, the official said, speaking anonymously due to restrictions on speaking to media.
Among the fatalities was Idris al-Darsi, the office director of Aqila Saleh, speaker of Libya’s Tobruk-based parliament, the source said.
According to the unnamed official, two other people were injured in the crash — the cause of which remains unknown — while another passenger remains unaccounted for.
“The aircraft was returning from the oil crescent [along the Libyan coast] where it had been sent to check the situation there after army forces seized control of oil terminals in the area,” he said.
Last week, forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-proclaimed National Libyan Army, seized control of the Ras Lanuf and Sidra oil terminals in the eastern city of Al-Bayda from forces loyal to Libya’s unity government.
On Sunday, however, government forces claimed to have retaken control of the terminals.
Libya has been roiled by chaos since the ouster and death of strongman Muammar Gaddafi following a 2011 popular uprising.
Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of government, one in Tobruk and another in Tripoli.
Late last year, Libya’s rival governments signed a UN-sponsored agreement establishing a government of national unity.
The UN-backed unity government, however, remains beset by difficulties and has yet to assume its governing mandate across the troubled North African country.
