UK surveyors: 'Libyan mercenaries using ambulances to murder civilians'

Gaddafi’s mercenaries are using ambulances to ambush and gun down civilians, British surveyors still trapped in Tripoli have told Building.

The UK firm, which we are not naming for security reasons, still has a number of British workers in the Libyan capital which it is currently evacuating.

The head of the office there said that mercenaries had begun to shoot people in public “completely indiscriminately”.

Libyan staff members had seen “ambulances full of mercenaries getting out and shooting everyone” as part of ambushes against civilians.

“Our local staff are traumatised,” he said.

He said the fighting flared up during the night and calmed down during the day, and it had been intensifying over the past few days with more protests expected at around 4pm today.

“It’s not good – we’re caught between two areas, with guns and grenades going off all over the place.”

He said however that he had not heard or seen aircraft or helicopters bombing protesters, as has been widely reported.

All construction work in the capital has stopped, he said, with employers all trying to get their staff out of the country.

Earlier today Capita Symonds said that an airport in Benghazi, in the east of the country, which it was rebuilding had been hit by bombs, destroying its runway.