1,200 Migrants Rescued From Besieged Libyan City
 

By the CNN Wire Staff
April 15, 2011 11:23 a.m. EDT

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Rebel fighters in Libya driving towards the front line near the eastern town of Ajdabiya on Friday.

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Western leaders described a "medieval siege" Friday on the Libyan city of Misrata, pounded for days by Moammar Gadhafi's mortar and artillery rounds.
Around 1,200 of the more than 8,000 stranded migrants in the besieged city were rescued Friday by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The group chartered a boat to pluck them from the war-torn port city and deliver them to the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi in the eastern part of the country.
The aid group said the migrants were from various nations and included women and children. All were weak and dehydrated. Medical agencies set up a small hospital on deck.
The IOM identified 8,300 migrants living in the open around the Misrata port without adequate food or medical care as the city came under regular fire. The group hopes to send back the chartered boat to evacuate a second round of people if it receives enough donations.
"This is a terrible situation," said Pasquale Lupoli, the group's Middle East representative. "They are the forgotten victims of the crisis and shouldn't be."
The military deadlock in Libya between Gadhafi's forces and rebels shows little sign of resolution.
Western powers have said repeatedly that airstrikes were intended to fulfill a United Nations mandate to protect civilians. However, in a joint opinion piece that appeared Friday in three European newspapers, U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote about better times once there is a regime change.
"Our duty and our mandate under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that," they wrote. "It is not to remove (Gadhafi) by force. But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with (Gadhafi) in power."
"The International Criminal Court is rightly investigating the crimes committed against civilians and the grievous violations of international law," they wrote. "It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government."
The leaders likened the fighting in Misrata to a medieval siege and called on the Libyan troops to return to their barracks.
"We are convinced that better times lie ahead for the people of LIbya," they wrote.
Opposition forces kept up the fight Friday, saying they had pushed west from Ajdabiya to the town of al-Brega, which has changed hands several times and appears to remain under the control of Gadhafi loyalists.
War planes were heard over the skies of Ajdabiya Friday but CNN could not independently verify the rebel advance.
The debate over NATO's strategy in Libya buzzed at high-level meetings this week in Europe as well as in Qatar, host of the first gathering of the international Libya Contact Group, charged with mapping out peace for Libya.
With the conflict at a deadly impasse, Britain and France have been pressuring NATO to step up airstrikes.
At a NATO summit in Berlin Thursday, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters that NATO has the necessary assets to continue aerial strikes, but the tactical nature of the fight has changed.
"Now they hide their heavy arms in populated areas, where before many targets were easier to get to," Rasmussen said. "To avoid civilian casualties, we need very sophisticated equipment. So, we need a few more precision fighter ground-attack aircraft for air-to-ground missions."
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