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Parliament-appointed Prime Minister Fathi Baschagha
Photo: Jihed Abidellaoui / REUTERS
According to the Reuters news agency, supporters of the rival camps have been fighting since the morning in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Gunshots were said to have been heard, and video clips were broadcast on television showing fighting in the city center and in the port.
schools were closed.
Prime Minister Fathi Baschagha, appointed by parliament, had previously left for Tripoli during the night because he wanted to take over government business there.
Baschagha has since left the city, his office said.
In recent months, fears of a resurgence in the civil war that was stopped with a ceasefire in 2020 had grown in Libya.
The appointment of former interior minister Baschagha earlier this year stalled peace efforts in a country divided into eastern and western factions.
Baschagha is backed by the influential General Chalifa Haftar, who unsuccessfully tried to take Tripoli in 2019.
Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, who was deposed by parliament, does not want to vacate his post, saying this can only happen after an election and not after a parliamentary vote.
Baschagha had tried several times to get to the capital but was stopped.
Last week he said he wanted to work from Sirte.
Elections were actually planned for last December as part of the UN-supervised peace process.
However, the rival factions fell out over the election rules, so far there has not been a vote.
Chaos has reigned in the oil-rich North African country since the fall of longtime ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011.
In 2014 it split into an eastern and a western war party.
as/Reuters
