TRIPOLI, Libya — The U.N. humanitarian chief said Monday that the Libyan government has promised her access to the besieged rebel city of Misrata, but with no guarantees that the assault by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces would cease.

A Libyan official said the government is willing to set up “safe passage” into Misrata, the only city still partly held by rebels in Gadhafi-controlled western Libya. But at the same time, a witness in Misrata reported Monday that government forces continued to pound the city with rockets and artillery.

At least 267 people have been killed in Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, during more than seven weeks of siege, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Monday. It said the final toll is likely higher. After inspecting impact sites and talking to witnesses, the group accused Libyan forces of launching indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks on residential neighborhoods.

Rebels and civilians evacuated from Misrata by boat as part of an international rescue mission were taken off on gurneys or in wheelchairs Monday. One had a severely damaged leg with braces and bandages and some women carried babies. One of the rebels carried fragments of rockets as he disembarked in the rebels’ de facto capital Benghazi late Monday.

“I brought this to show people what’s going on there (in Misrata). Somebody has to do something about it,” said the rebel, 38-year-old Ali Milad, who wore a long dirty robe and carried his belongings in a single bag.

The rebels have controlled much of eastern Libya, including the second-largest Libyan city of Benghazi, since early on in the uprising against Gadhafi that began in mid-February. Gadhafi loyalists have crushed other rebellions in western Libya, but have not been able to take back control of Misrata through many weeks of attacks.

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The Libyan government has denied firing heavy weapons, including rockets and tank shells, at the city.

“If there is killing of civilians, we are saying that the rebels are the ones killing civilians,” government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Monday. He said the rebels have received weapons by sea from the Gulf state of Qatar and alleged European governments also have started arming the Misrata fighters, but did not provide evidence.

The Libyan government has turned down requests by foreign journalists based in the capital of Tripoli to go to Misrata.

Valerie Amos, the U.N. humanitarian chief, said she demanded in a meeting with Libyan officials in Tripoli on Sunday that the U.N. be permitted to visit Misrata and other towns to assess humanitarian needs there.

“I have been given those assurances,” she said Monday, speaking in Benghazi.

However, she added that she received “no guarantees with respect to my call for an overall cessation of hostilities, to enable people to move, to enable us to deliver supplies.”

Ibrahim, the Libyan official, said the government is willing to take international organizations, including the U.N., into the areas of Misrata it controls. “We will help them do everything they want, help the population, and they can observe the way our army is acting and behaving in Misrata,” he said.

The battle for Misrata and warnings by aid officials of an increasingly dire situation there have turned into a test of NATO’s resolve to protect Libyan civilians, as mandated by the U.N.

 


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