Human Rights Watch: Libya death toll reaches 233

The estimated death toll from four days of violence in Libya between security forces and protesters is at least 233, New-York based Human Rights Watch said on Sunday.

The group said sources at two hospitals in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the worst of the violence has taken place, said at least 60 people were killed on Sunday.

In the meantime, Muammar Gaddafi’s son went on state television to proclaim that his father remained in charge with the Army's backing and would "fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet”.

Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, in the regime's first comments on the six days of demonstrations, warned the protesters that they risked igniting a civil war in which Libya's oil wealth "will be burned”.

Anti-government unrest has spread to the Libyan capital of Tripoli and protesters seized military bases and weapons on Sunday.

The speech followed a fierce crackdown by security forces who fired on thousands of demonstrators and funeral marchers in the eastern city of Benghazi in a bloody cycle of violence that killed 60 people on Sunday alone, according to a doctor in one city hospital.