Thousands of people have fled worsening violence in Libya’s Western Mountains region over the last week through the border crossing near the southern Tunisian town of Dehiba.

The insurgents took control early on Thursday after clashes with government forces. Dozens of Qaddafi loyalists handed themselves over to the Tunisian military although Tunisian officials said most had returned home through another route.

Libya’s government has denied that the rebels captured the post, saying insurgents in the sparsely-populated region were “hiding in some caves” from where they launched attacks.

But insurgents were still at the border crossing on Friday, displaying weaponry and equipment they said they had seized from government troops. They said they had taken up arms to drive out Qaddafi’s forces.

Western Mountains towns joined a wider revolt against Qaddafi’s autocratic four-decade-old rule in February and are now facing government attacks, refugees say.

The area is inhabited by Berbers, a group ethnically distinct from most Libyans and traditionally viewed with suspicion by Qaddafi’s government.

The violence in Western Mountains, which includes the towns of Nalut, Yafran and Zintan, has received little of the international attention given to attacks on cities on the Libyan coast such as Misrata and Ajdabiyah.
 

At least 14,000 people from Western Mountains have poured into Tunisia since April 6, some saying their home areas were bombarded by government forces, the UN refugee agency said.

The post near Dehiba is the smaller of Tunisia’s two border crossings with Libya. The main one is at Ras Jdir further north.

“They say the whole Western Mountains has been under siege for a month and the fighting has intensified,” said Firas Kiyal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“They have originated mainly from Nalut where they say there has been intensified fighting and shelling,” he said.

Most of the refugees were families traveling in cars filled with their belongings. They are now staying with Tunisian families, in hotels or refugee camps, including about 1,000 on a football field in the town of Remada, he said.

“Some are saying that their areas have been bombarded by government forces. Others are saying that they did not wait and the moment they heard government forces were on the way they fled. A third group said they fled the fighting,” Kiyal said.

Libyan soldiers who were wounded in Thursday’s fighting received medical treatment in Tunisia, but most of the others had been sent back to Libya at border points not controlled by the rebels, Tunisian officials said.