Homemade alcohol kills 51 in Libya

Fifty one people in Libya have been killed and hundreds hospitalised after drinking homemade alcohol which is thought to have contained methanol.

The Libya Herald reported yesterday that 551 people had been admitted to hospital in Tripoli and that patients were still arriving.

A state of emergency has now been declared in all the country’s hospitals and health centres and one doctor told the Herald that there are not enough beds to deal with the volume of patients coming to hospital.

The doctor said: “It’s the first experience of a disaster like this. We’re not trained to deal with a situation like this. The hospital does not have the capacity for such a large number coming.

“Most of the patients are in a very bad condition.”

The sale of alcohol is banned in Libya, but it is available on the black market and several sources claim that the trafficking of drugs and alcohol has increased sharply since Colonel Gaddafi was deposed in 2011.

It is thought that the alcohol in question was a cheap local brew known as Bokha, which is often distilled from figs. Bokha is sometimes laced with methanol to increase its alcoholic content.

Those who have fallen ill have suffered kidney failure, blindness and seizures and the doctor told the Herald that there was more than one batch responsible for the poisoning.

He added: “These poison cases are not coming just from one source. There is more than one source.”

This is Libya’s worst case of mass poisoning and the country’s Criminal Investigations Directorate is now investigating. The BBC reports that officers have surrounded several properties where Bokha is thought to be made.