Humanitarian organizations say 14 mass graves found in Libya

[News_Editor]

Humanitarian organizations say 14 mass graves found in Libya

2011-09-15 12:55:01 GMT+7 (ICT)

TRIPOLI (BNO NEWS) -- The bodies of more than 160 people have been found in 14 separate mass graves in Libya, all but two in and around Tripoli, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

ICRC staff member Carole Pittet said the organization has assisted with the recovery of 125 bodies at 12 different mass graves in and around Tripoli, the capital of Libya. "This week we dispatched two forensic experts to the field to support our colleagues already involved in the management of human remains," she said.

Both Pittet and Human Rights Watch said a 13th mass grave containing 34 bodies was found in al-Qawalish, a town in the Nafusa Mountains about 113 kilometers (70 miles) south-southwest of Tripoli. "The newly established National Council for the Missing quickly turned to us for technical support," Pittet said.

Nonetheless, Pittet said there have been reports of improvised exhumations which carry the risk that the remains could be mishandled. "Important information needed for proper identification of the dead could be lost," she said.

According to Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, the bodies in al-Qawalish appear to be of men who were detained by pro-Gaddafi forces in early June 2011. "The mass grave at al-Qawalish contains further evidence strongly suggesting that Gaddafi loyalists carried out mass executions of detainees as they struggled to suppress the uprising," he said. "These victims included some very old men, some executed together with their sons."

Human Rights Watch said it first visited the area on July 6 after pro-Gaddafi forces had fled the town, and the new authorities in the region provided the names of 173 missing men, including 81 from al-Qawalish. The organization said it found the mass grave after a video clip on the mobile phone of a captured pro-Gaddafi soldier showed the bodies of men in a forest behind a Libyan Scouts base on the western edge of the town.

The exhumed bodies were blindfolded with their hands tied, and Human Rights Watch said the discovery of bullet casings at the site suggests the captors killed the men with automatic gunfire before burying them in a shallow common grave. Near the mass grave is a separate grave containing three more bodies that have not yet been exhumed, but have been tentatively identified based on footwear and other physical evidence.

Mohammed Ramadan al-Barghout, 34, a physics teacher, told Human Rights Watch that he had been detained by Gaddafi loyalists at his house in Umm el-Jershan in early June and taken to the Scouts base. He said he had seen about half of those later found in the mass grave alive in detention when he arrived, and that he had witnessed the violent beatings of two brothers, Emhammed Al-Shatour, 17, and El-Hasmi Al-Shatour.

"Emhammed Al-Shatour was beaten until his leg was broken," al-Barghout told Human Rights Watch. "They were beating him in front of his father to try and make the father confess, right after I arrived at the Scouts base. They just grabbed Emhammed and tied him up and started beating him with a stick on his leg, a heavy wooden stick. His brother El-Hasmi was being beaten at the same time in the next room. They brought the boys' father to witness the beating so he would talk and give them information. Two or three soldiers were doing the beatings until they got tired, and then others came to take over. Their father was crying, saying he didn’t know anything about the rebels. The Gaddafi soldiers were calling them rats, saying 'you rats brought NATO, you dogs.'"

Both sons and the father were among the victims who were exhumed from the mass grave in al-Qawalish, Human Rights Watch said. Mohammed Ramadan al-Barghout was released on the same day of his capture but fled when he heard pro-Gaddafi forces were seeking to re-arrest him.

Another witness, Omar SaadKhozam, 53, a postal worker, told Human Rights Watch he was detained at the Scouts base on June 3 as he returned from postal duties in Tripoli. He told the organization how he was beaten and told he saw one other detainee being beaten to death as he was tied to a door frame.

"The way they treated us was really bad - I had to seek medical treatment after I was released and still can't see from my left eye," SaadKhozam told Human Rights Watch. "They made me take off my shirt and whipped me with electrical wire, and then they rubbed salt into the wounds to increase the pain. They wouldn't even let us pray. And whenever some of them passed by and heard I was from al-Qawalish, they would come and beat me. Another detainee, I don't know his name, was bound to a window and whipped with cables, and kicked. When they beat us to the ground, they would continue kicking us with their boots. They whipped and kicked us like this all the time, especially when they lost some of their soldiers in battles."

Since the protests against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi began in mid-February, Libya has been engulfed in a civil war which has left tens of thousands of people killed. Rebels have taken over large parts of Libya in recent weeks, including the country's capital of Tripoli, effectively removing Gaddafi from power although some troops are still loyal to his regime.

More than 80 countries have now recognized the rebel's National Transitional Council (NTC) as Libya's sole representative, including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and France. Other countries have established formal or informal relations with the NTC, while some other countries only recognize the NTC as a negotiating party.

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