by Emma Farge and Angus McDowall
GENEVA (Reuters) – Mass graves, possibly numbering 100, have yet to be unearthed in Tarhouna, western Libya, where the “Kaniyat” militia imprisoned, tortured and executed hundreds of civilians from 2016 to 2020, a UN fact-finding mission said on Monday.
The Fact-Finding Mission is to submit a 51-page report to the UN Human Rights Council this week on the abuses of seven brothers, the Kani, first allied to the government of national unity in Tripoli. (GNA), then passed in 2019 to the camp of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army, in eastern Libya.
The militia left the city in 2020.
The strong mission of 18 investigators, which collected testimonies from residents and visited the scene twice, said it had evidence of crimes against humanity. Four suspected perpetrators have been identified.
Among the victims, people with disabilities, women and children, according to the UN.
At this stage, 247 bodies have been discovered by the Libyan authorities in individual graves or mass graves in the Tarhouna sector, south of Tripoli.
“According to informed sources, there could be up to a hundred mass graves that have not been unearthed,” the report said. Three sites are considered suspect in this respect.
In its conclusions, the MEI calls on the Libyan authorities to continue the investigation and to establish a special tribunal.
(Written by Emma Farge, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Sophie Louet)