In the wake of Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) Hanna Tetteh’s briefing to the UN Security Council (at which she did not announce a new political roadmap), there were protests and a storming of the UNSMIL headquarters in Tripoli.
On 24 June, in the late afternoon, a sit-in was held by a few hundred protesters outside of the UNSMIL headquarters in Janzour in front of the main gate. A couple of dozen protesters stormed the external gate of the compound. They forced their way about 100m into the compound along the corridor that connects the external gate with the inner gate while the UN deployed security forces equipped with crowd and riot control (CRC) to prevent further intrusion. There were no clashes between the protesters and the UN security forces.
The protesters denounced UNSMIL’s role in the country and accused it of placing Libya under international tutelage. They demanded the withdrawal of UNSMIL and the fall of PM Abdul Hameed Dabaiba’s interim government, arguing that the recent briefing of SRSG Hanna Tetteh to the Security Council failed to offer real solutions.
On 25 June, UNSMIL rejected media claims that it ordered the evacuation of its headquarters and declared Tripoli unsafe after protesters stormed the compound.