10 bodies found in new Libya mass grave

TRIPOLI — Authorities in Libya on Monday announced the discovery of 10 bodies in a new mass grave in Tarhuna, the latest morbid find after years of rule by the notorious Kaniyat militia.

“Two sites were discovered. Four unidentified bodies were extracted from the first and six from the second,” the department charged with searching for remains said in a statement.

It also published pictures showing a number of holes in what it said was a local landfill site, adding that it expected to unearth more bodies.

The grim discovery came as a UN fact-finding mission found that all parties to Libya’s decade-long conflict have violated international humanitarian law since 2016, with some possibly guilty of war crimes.

Mass graves were initially discovered in Tarhuna in June 2020 following the withdrawal of forces of Khalifa Haftar, an eastern Libya-based military chief who had spent a year trying to seize the western capital Tripoli, 80 kilometres northwest of Tarhuna.

The farming town was since 2015 ruled by the Haftar-allied Kaniyat militia, run by six brothers who systematically executed not only their opponents but their entire families.

After starting their reign of terror in 2015, “the militia often abducted, detained, tortured, killed, and disappeared people who opposed them or who were suspected of doing so”, according to residents’ testimonies cited by Human Rights Watch.

Haftar used Tarhuna as a rear base for his aborted attack on Tripoli, and more than 150 bodies have been found since his forces’ withdrawal in 2020.

Members of the Kaniyat have been sanctioned by the United States and Britain.

Their chief Mohamed Al Kani was shot dead in the eastern city of Benghazi in July and others are rumoured to have fled east or abroad, reports that are not possible to verify.

Libya has seen a decade of violence since the fall in 2011 of dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a NATO-backed rebellion, with a myriad of militias and foreign forces becoming involved.

A ceasefire between eastern and western powers after Haftar’s defeat last year paved the way for a UN-led political transition, with a unity government taking power this year to lead Libya to elections.