TRIPOLI: Two weeks of clashes between rival armed groups in the city of Sabratha sparked by a lethal shooting at a checkpoint have left 26 dead and 170 wounded, the health ministry said on Friday.

The ministry said on its Facebook page that the toll, the first official casualty count for the fighting, was compiled by a follow-up commission on the violence in Sabratha, a hub for illegal migration on Libya’s Mediterranean coast.

The clashes since September 17 have pitted a security force loyal to Libya’s UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) against the militia of the head of a former people smuggling network, Ahmad Dabbashi.

They started with an exchange of gunfire at a checkpoint manned by the security force in which a militiaman was killed.

Libya has plunged into insecurity and political chaos since the ouster and killing of its long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi in a Nato-backed 2011 revolution.

People smugglers have fed on the turmoil, turning violence-wracked Libya into a key gateway for illegal migration to Europe.

Sabratha, 40 kilometres west of Tripoli where the GNA is based, is Libya’s main departure point for migrants trying to reach Europe. Daesh terrorists briefly occupied the centre of the city in February 2016.

Dabbashi is reportedly among several people smugglers who have decided to halt their lucrative business and cooperate with authorities.

Meanwhile, two tribal leaders and two other men were killed when their car was riddled with bullets Friday as they returned from a mediation mission in central Libya, local sources said.

The Warfalla tribal clan, one of the country’s largest, said on its Facebook page that two sheikhs, Abdullah Nattat and Khamis Isbaga, died along with two companions.

The men were on their way home to Bani Walid after a mediation mission in Mizda, 180 kilometres south of the Libyan capital, when their car was attacked, the sources and local media said.

Both of Libya’s rival administrations, the Government of National Accord based in Tripoli and authorities in eastern Libya, condemned the assassinations, for which there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The Warfalla clan is based in Bani Walid, one of the last towns to have supported Gaddafi during Libya’s 2011 revolt.