In Tarhuna, a former stronghold of warlord Khalifa Haftar’s forces located northeast of the capital Tripoli, Libyan authorities have discovered two new mass graves according to official statements.
In a statement over the weekend, the General Authority for Research and Identification of Missing Persons said that the bodies found in the mass graves will be exhumed on Monday.
Haftar’s forces and affiliated militias committed war crimes and acts of genocide between April 2019 and June 2020, according to official Libyan sources.
Following the defeat of Haftar’s forces in the western areas of Libya in June last year, the Libyan government discovered around 300 bodies in mass graves in Tarhuna and in the south of Tripoli.
Recently, on July 27, Mohammad al-Kani, one of Haftar’s favorite commanders, who committed war crimes by murdering many civilians in Tarhuna, was assassinated in Benghazi.
Earlier in the same month, the Libyan Director of the Department of Search and Identification of Missing Persons announced that 3 bodies were excavated from graves discovered in Tarhuna on July 7, which were linked to the Kaniyat family, which has links with warlord Haftar, controlled the city during the offensive of Haftar militias on Tripoli, and was involved in numerous war crimes and human rights violations.
