Focus on HIV kids in Libya
2006-01-27 09:26
Sofia - Libyan, Bulgarian, British, United States government and EU representatives met on Thursday in Sofia to discuss the work of an international fund set up last week in Tripoli to help about 426 HIV-infected children in Libya, the foreign ministry said.
"The participants in the talks discussed ways and means for reaching the goals of the International fund," it said in a statement. It did not elaborate.
Charitable organisations from the European Union set up the fund on January 21 in Tripoli to aid the families of the infected children as a way to seek the release of six foreign medical workers blamed for the epidemics, who have already spent seven years in a Libyan prison.
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were originally sentenced to death for allegedly causing the infection but Libya's Supreme Court ordered a retrial for the foreign workers that again threatens to extend for years.
Families of the victims are seeking a total of around €4.3bn in "compensation" in order to free the nurses - a definition rejected by Bulgaria as a way of recognising guilt.
The fund was thus seen as a convenient way for Bulgaria and the international community to supply aid for the treatment of the infected children without specifically naming it as money compensation.