Eight people, seven of whom were children, were the tragic casualties of a rocket attack that hit the city of Benghazi in Eastern Libya on Thursday. The rocket hit a residential building, medics said, just two days after Islamic State militants claimed a similar attack.
Benghazi is the North African state's second largest oil producer. Islamist factions and the army have been engaged in combat for more than a year, according to Reuters.
A reporter from Reuters said he saw several children dead in a city hospital. The other casualty in the attack was an adult, though it is still unknown if the person was male or female, according to medics who responded to the incident. Eleven people were also wounded, according to the Voice of America.
As of writing, no groups have claimed responsibility or the attack, though it happened only two days after four children were killed by a mortar round on Tuesday. In a Twitter message, Islamic State militants claimed that they were behind the incident.
The city has become the battleground between the army and forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, who is a known supporter of Libya's internationally-recognized Prime Minister, Abdullah al-Thinni, as well as Islamic groups, according to Reuters.
However, Thinni was forced to flee Tripoli last August due to pressures by rival groups, who seized the capital and set up a new administration that supported the Benghazi-based Islamist groups, according to the Voice of America. The militants have since killed dozens of foreign Christians and countless civilians, many of whom were children.
The city of Benghazi has become an unfortunate location in the battle of two rebel groups who used to work together in order to bring the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi back in 2011. After the fall of Gaddafi however, the two factions have fallen out along tribal, regional and political lines.
