ROME — Hundreds of bodies have been discovered in mass graves in Tarhuna, Libya, following the liberation of the city from the militias of General Khalifa Haftar, the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper announced Wednesday.
The bodies of many persons who had disappeared without a trace have been found by the General Authority for the Search and Identification of Missing Persons in Libya as part of a cleanup operation of Tarhuna, southeast of Tripoli.
So far, 80 civilian graves have been unearthed in the city, the last strategic stronghold of the Russian-backed warlord General Haftar, head of the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA), L’Osservatore Romano reported.
The LNA was the chief rival to Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).
Members of the General Authority for Search and Identification of Missing Persons team carry one of the five bodies who was a victim of Al-Kaneyat massacres in newly discovered mass grave, in a large agricultural area known as Mashrou al-Rabet in Meji on September 27, 2021 in Tarhuna, Libya. (Nada Harib/Getty Images)
The 80 graves are divided between 43 mass graves and 37 individual ones, while a total of 232 bodies have been recovered, 65 of which were identified after conducting a DNA test.
The graves were located in three areas of Tarhuna, including 7 in the city’s landfill. Those buried there were reportedly killed at the hands of the al-Kaniyat militia — a group linked to Haftar — known as the Ninth Brigade and founded by the four al-Kani brothers.
Tarhuna had been used by LNA forces as a base in its campaign to conquer Tripoli, which began on April 4, 2019.
Last March, the Libyan government announced a total of 3,650 missing persons from different cities, 350 of which were from Tarhuna.
Three civil lawsuits have been filed against Haftar in U.S. federal court, Reuters reported, including accusations of war crimes, torture, and other human rights violations.