With foreign media barred from the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi, and severe restrictions on internet and communications, witness accounts from there spoke of around 200 dead and many more injured over the weekend in anti-Gaddafi protests.
"My country is swimming in a pool of blood," said a 56-year old expatriate Libyan doctor, living in Birmingham. "People are being massacred in the street. It's a bloodbath."
The demonstrators repeated unverified claims that foreign mercenaries were being used to attack anti-government protesters.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the issue would be raised at meeting of European Union foreign ministers Monday.
Hague, in an interview on Sky News, defended the British government's normalisation of relations with Libya, initiated under Tony Blair, saying one benefit had been to curtail any
Libyan intention to produce weapons of mass destruction.
Britain and Libya now enjoy close economic ties, with BP (the oil giant) involved in oil-drilling in the country.
Published 21 February 2011, 03:08 IST