Two military transport airplanes C-130 left the military airport of Elefsis Tuesday morning carrying 24 tons of drink water to Libya. 48,000 bottles of water will help the residents of Tripoli to extinguish their thirst. According to a Greek Foreign Ministry announcement, thousands of inhabitants are facing serious water shortages.
Many of Tripoli’s two million inhabitants have suffered water shortages since the capital was captured by anti-Qaddafi forces last month. On Sunday, Libya’s new leadership said it had control of much of the Great Man-Made River that brings water from desert aquifers to the coastal cities.
Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou last week proposed a steady airlift of Greek water to Libya at an international conference on the conflict in Paris. “We are in a position to transport up to 175,000 cubic metres of water every ten days, a supply which is expected to increase Tripoli’s drinkable water reserves by 50 percent,” he told reporters at the time.
Greece, which last month recognised the National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya, is traditionally close to the Arab world and its government had kept channels of communication open to both sides during the six-month conflict.
source: also from Daily Star
