TRIPOLI, Libya
Libyan authorities have
discovered 42 unknown bodies in a mass grave in the northern coastal city of
Sirte.
The General Authority for
Research and Identification of Missing Persons said in a statement on Sunday
that it received a notification from the office of the local prosecutor on a
mass grave found in Ibn Khaldoun school in the Jiza al-Bahriya area.
It said 42 unknown bodies were
exhumed over two weeks of work in the school.
The bodies were taken to a
hospital to take samples from the bones and were buried later, the statement
said.
"Samples were taken from
the bones for DNA analysis, in coordination with the forensics office,"
the same source said.
The radical jihadists had
fiercely defended the city for months, using urban guerrilla tactics, before
being defeated by pro-government forces in late 2016.
The bodies are believed to be
belonging to people killed by the Daesh/ISIS terrorist group which seized the
city for more than a year from August 2015 to December 2016.
Discoveries of mass graves are
common in war-torn Libya, especially in Tarhuna city, a former stronghold for
warlord Khalifa Haftar.
More recently, two mass graves
of seven and eight bodies respectively were discovered in the courtyard of a
hospital in Sirte in late August.
According to Libyan official
sources, Haftar’s forces and affiliated militias committed war crimes and acts
of genocide in the period between April 2019 and June 2020.
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