A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres says the secretary is “deeply shocked by the discovery of multiple mass graves in recent days, the majority of them in Tarhouna” in Libya.
Tarhouna was a stronghold of renegade General Khalifa Haftar and his forces, but it recently was recaptured.
Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric says the U.N. chief has called for “a thorough and transparent investigation, and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.”
Guterres also has offered U.N. assistance, Dujarric says, “to secure the mass graves, identify the victims, establish causes of death and return the bodies to next of kin.”
Philippe Nassif, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, told the Associated Press that he wanted his agency or the U.N. “to go in and collect evidence of potential war crimes and other atrocities … so eventually a process takes place where justice can be served.”
Tarhouna is 65 kilometers southeast of Libya’s capital, Tripoli.
