UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- A UN envoy on Wednesday called for international support for a further cessation of hostilities and renewed dialogue in Libya.
Ghassan Salame, UN secretary-general's special representative for Libya, told the Security Council that now "many Libyans feel abandoned by part of the international community and exploited by others."
According to Salame, the conflict in the country has spread geographically since April 4 and has exacted a heavy toll on civilians and those fighting.
To date, more than 100 civilians have been killed and over 300 injured, and 120,000 civilians have been displaced, he said, adding that there are no confirmed figures for the total number of fighters who have died so far, but anecdotally the figure appears to be in the low thousands.
Salame said that without the unequivocal support of the Security Council and the broader international community for an immediate end to the Libyan conflict, Libya is faced with "two highly unpalatable scenarios."
"One scenario is a persistent and protracted low intensity conflict which will see continued fratricide amongst the Libyans, the immiseration of the population and exposure of the vulnerable migrant and refugee community to further depredations, more destruction of the country's already battered infrastructure, and a growing transnational terrorist threat," said Salame.
"An equally unsatisfactory scenario is a doubling down of military support to one side or the other by their external patrons, resulting in a sharp escalation that will assuredly plunge the entire region into chaos," he added.
Salame said the idea that war should be given a chance and that a military solution is at all possible is quite simply a chimera.
The UN has been attempting to broker a truce in fighting which erupted following a major assault in April on the southern outskirts of the capital Tripoli by the forces of the Libyan National Army (LNA) and forces loyal to the UN-backed government of national accord.
Three UN workers were killed last month in a car bomb attack in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Libya has been struggling to make a democratic transition amid insecurity and chaos ever since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
