October 29, 2011

SIRTE, Libya — Volunteers are still finding dozens of bodies in Moamer Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte that fell on October 20, including of Libyan civilians killed in a suspected NATO air strike.

Twenty-six unmarked makeshift graves covered by breeze-blocks were discovered at a water treatment plant in Number Two district where pro-Kadhafi fighters put up a final stand after several weeks of heavy bombardment.

As a pungent odour filled the air due to the bodies' state of decomposition, the shallow graves in the sand were found scattered amidst the plant's devastated buildings, an AFP correspondent on the spot said.

According to Ibrahim Suleiman, one of the volunteers collecting bodies in Sirte over the past week, they were of pro-Kadhafi fighters hastily buried by comrades as new regime forces closed in on the city.

Suleiman said his colleague had buried a total of more than 500 bodies since October 23 across Sirte, most of them believed to be fighters. It was unclear if other teams were doing the same work.

In the centre, at the crossroads of Dubai and September 1 streets, Libyan charity Jabal al-Akhdar told AFP more than 50 bodies of civilians were found under the rubble of a several-storey building flattened in a NATO air strike.

"There are more than 50 civilians under the rubble, of women, of children. It's horrible. We can't get access. It would take bulldozers," said a teary-eyed member of the charity, Mohammed Muftah.

Local residents backed up the account of an air strike that left behind a huge crater of the type that could not have been left by weapons used by Kadhafi's fighters or their foes in the National Transitional Council.

Another volunteer, Mohammed Yunes al-Hemali, said they are tipped off about corpses by returning local residents. "Often when they return home, the families find a body or a makeshift grave in their property," he said.

Over the past week, graves and corpses have been a common sight in Sirte.

Between 65 and 70 bodies were found rotting on the lawn of Al-Mahari hotel, some with their hands bound, many with a bullet in the head.

NTC fighters said they were executed by Kadhafi's forces before the fall of the city, but Human Rights Watch, which carried out an investigation, said they were more likely executed by anti-Kadhafi fighters.

On the outskirts of town, 200 charred bodies were found of pro-Kadhafi fighters hit in NATO air strikes on a convoy when they fled as the eight-month conflict ended with the capture and killing of the ousted strongman.

AFP