THE continued lack of accountability and years of impunity enjoyed by those behind the human rights violations and abuses committed in the Libyan city of Tarhuna between 2013 and 2022 risks fuelling more instability and division in the country, a joint report by the UN Human Rights organisation and the UN Support Mission in Libya has warned.
UN Human Rights spokesperson Seif Magango said: “The report details how the Al-Kaniyat, an armed element which emerged in 2011 and exercised brutal control over Tarhuna, a city of some 150,000 people 90 km southeast of Tripoli, carried out gross human rights violations and abuses including killings, disappearances, sexual violence, abductions, torture, ill-treatment and forced displacement between 2013 and 2022,” Magango said.
“It decries the failure to deliver justice which has in some instances led to renewed violence and repeated violations, fomenting further grievances in Tarhuna and surrounding areas Al-Kaniyat’s integration into the former Government of National Accord (GNA) and later the Libyan National Army (LNA), says the report, has been a significant barrier to accountability and justice,” he said.
“Commenting on the report, High Commissioner Volker Türk said: ‘Years have passed since these terrible violations were committed, but the perpetrators have still not been brought to justice, nor have truth, justice or reparations been delivered to victims and their families. The impunity must end – there must be accountability in accordance with international due process and fair trial standards.”
The report – which complemented and builds on the 2022 findings of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya – recommended a comprehensive transitional justice and reconciliation process, with meaningful truth-seeking measures and effective reparations for victims, including legal aid, mental health support and guarantees of non-repetition, designed in consultation with those directly affected. It also calls for robust accountability measures, through investigations and prosecutions of alleged perpetrators in line with international standards.
“The 2022 Fact-Finding Mission report detailed evidence of atrocities committed in Tarhuna, including through the discovery of mass graves containing hundreds of human remains, most of them handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture, and warned of the possibility that there could be up to 100 more such mass burial sites,” Magango said.
