TRIPOLI, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Sunday revealed that the UN will send 200 security personnel to protect the mission in Libya.
"UNSMIL is to send a security unit in batches to guard its headquarters in Libya consisting of 200 elements, in preparation for the full return of the mission to Tripoli," UNSMIL spokeswoman Sawsan Ghosha told local TV channel Al-Nabaa.
"The dispatch of a guard unit is normal in all UN missions," Ghosha said, stressing that the unit "is merely to secure the headquarters of the mission and is not a peacekeeping force in Libya, as some media outlets have reported."
Regarding the possibility of the UN Security Council sending peacekeeping forces to Libya, Ghosha confirmed that the work of the mission is political and has nothing to do with the dispatch of security forces.
The Italian newspaper La Stampa earlier this month reported that the UN mission will deploy 250 peacekeepers in Libya in October, then it was denied.
UNSMIL, along with most foreign missions and embassies, has left Libya in 2014 due to violence that erupted between rival militias in the capital Tripoli.
