The spread of the novel coronavirus will have a devastating effect on the Middle East’s communities of refugees and migrants. The pandemic may also bring into focus the legitimacy and governance deficit of increasingly troubled Middle Eastern regimes.

Renewed fighting in Libya, where both sides rely on drone support from foreign backers, has fueled a battle for air supremacy that augurs further escalation despite the coronavirus outbreak in the country. It also raises the prospect of Turkey sending more military aid to its allies.

Mahmoud Jibril, the former leader of the opposition Libyan government during the civil war that toppled Muammar Gaddafi after 4o years of rule, has died in Cairo after being hospitalised with the coronavirus.

Libya announced a new case of Coronavirus (Covid-19) today, bringing the total cases in the country to 18.

The United Nations warned Friday that health services in conflict-plagued Libya were already fragile as the North African country recorded its first death from the novel coronavirus.

An outbreak of the coronavirus in Libya could be “truly catastrophic” for the internally displaced people (IDP) and close to 700,000 refugees and migrants in the war-torn country, the United Nations migration agency has warned.

Libya confirmed its first death from the novel coronavirus on Thursday, Anadolu reports. An 85-year old woman who tested positive died from COVID-19, the Libyan National Center for Disease Control said in a statement.

There are fears that the spread of the new coronavirus in Libya will pose a serious threat to some of the 150,000 people who have been displaced by the conflict.

Libya has registered two new case of Coronavirus in the country, bringing the number of total cases to ten.

Libyan authorities have announced the release of more than 450 prisoners as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus that has infected at least eight people in the country.