Haftar Militias Dug Tombs and Carried out Human Rights Abuses in Benghazi

UN-backed government in Tripoli and human rights groups said that it has evidence that Haftar’s militias are carrying out abuses in Benghazi.

Several videos were posted online showing Haftar’s forces killing captured fighters.

The Libyan National Army(LNA), led by the renegade general Khalifa Haftar, has been waging a campaign in Libya’s second biggest city for nearly three years.

Haftar’s militia took over Benghazi’s south-western district of Ghanfouda after weeks of fighting.

Libyans and human rights groups condemned the graphic videos that shows brutal human rights violations by the LNA.

In one piece of footage, a senior LNA commander kills three men lined up against a wall on their knees; they were shot at point-blank range.

Another video showed soldiers drag a captured, unarmed man, who they believe is a militant. He gets thrown into a pile of rubble, slapped, and is asked if he has anything to say before he dies.

Then at least three in the group can be seen opening fire on him with assault rifles.

Moreover, Haftar’s forces were shown at one of the videos parading a dead body they dug up from Ganfouda for an opponent leader called Jalal Al-Makhzoum.

It was reported that the LNA exhumed tombs and dug out their opponents bodies to conduct abuses to the dead bodies.

“They took selfies with him, put him on a car as if they are shame walking him, but they forgot that he is dead and their moves are of no shame to him as he died five days earlier,”according to Libya Observer.

In another footage, the LNA killed a whole family including three women in cold blood after they captured them on their way out of the siege from Ganfouda.

According to Libya Observer,”The three women, a mother and two sisters were killed along with other family members in retaliation of what? We don’t know, but what we know is that we all have seen the pictures, footage and videos that showed the atrocities made by the villains who have been for long calling themselves the Libyan National Army.”

Human Rights Watch said said that it had spoken with relatives of civilians who said several family members had been detained by the LNA.

“There have also been unconfirmed reports of civilians being killed as they tried to escape. Some of them are believed to be relatives of fighters,”reported the BBC.

“Fighters aligned with the Libyan National Army in eastern Libya seem to have torn up the rule book, as they stand accused of summary executions, desecration of corpses of opposing fighters and attacking civilians with impunity,”said Hanan Salah, the senior Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch.

She added,”The army’s leadership in the east needs to know that they carry individual responsibility over the forces under their command and can be implicated in what appear to be war crimes, unless they act immediately to stop such violations and hold perpetrators to account.”

On the other hand, the LNA condemned in a statement  the summary executions and said they were individual acts not sanctioned by top commanders.

The LNA’s General Command says it has asked army unit chiefs to hand over the men shown in the videos to military police for questioning. They say the perpetrators will be held to account for their actions.