Australia is among the western countries urging its citizens in Libya to get out of the country as soon as possible, and in discouraging any travel to the North African nation.  British diplomats came under fire as Libya rapidly descended deeper into civil war.

“Shots were fired at our vehicles but all staff safe,” wrote UK Ambassador to Libya Michael Aron on his social media account.  He was riding in an armored vehicle in the convoy evacuating the Brits to neighboring Tunisia when gunmen fired at them.  All shots were stopped by bulletproof glass and no one was hurt. 

Security officers warned another convoy of European officials traveling behind them.  The Europeans turned back and flew out of Tripoli on an Italian Air Force plane.  American diplomats already left on the same road a day earlier, with cover provided by US war planes circling the convoy.

People are dying in groups numbering in the dozens as rival militias battle each other for turf and influence in the waning parliament.  The main rivalry pits loosely-allied Islamist groups – including the Muslim Brotherhood – against forces controlled by General Khalifa Haftar, the former military chief to dead dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Tripoli’s main airport is now a battered ruin, leaving foreigners to try to get out via the second largest airport Mitiga.  There is no petrol to be found.  Medical supplies are rapidly disappearing, and one of the militias stripped a medical supplies warehouse clean, leaving nothing for civilians caught in between the war parties.

(See the Australian Travel Warning here:  http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Libya)