GENEVA, June 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution asking the High Commissioner to send a fact-finding mission to Libya to address the human rights situation in the country.
The UNHRC has asked the mission to establish facts and circumstances regarding the human rights situation in Libya.
The mission should also “collect and review relevant information to document alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by all parties in Libya since the beginning of 2016,” the resolution says.
The information will be collected to “preserve evidence with a view to ensuring that perpetrators of violations or abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law are held accountable.”
Earlier in June, Libya discovered eight mass graves in the town of Tarhuna, which was used as the operation and supply center of militias loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar, according to the U.N.
The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) called the mass graves “terrifying.”
“UNSMIL notes with horror reports on the discovery of at least eight mass graves in past days, the majority of them in Tarhuna,” UNSMIL tweeted.
More than 150 bodies, including those of women and children, were exhumed from the graves in what was Haftar’s last stronghold in western Libya before its liberation.
Earlier this week, the Libyan army said it was awaiting a UN report that exposes “crimes and genocide” committed by Haftar’s militia in Tarhuna.
Meanwhile, the UN also said the “last thing” Libya needs is more conflict on its territory after Egypt warned of military intervention in the neighboring country.
“It is clear that the last thing Libya needs right now is more fighting, more military mobilization, more transfer of weapons, more presence of either foreign fighters or mercenaries on its soil,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric during his daily news conference.
“We’re alarmed by the continued military mobilization in central Libya, particularly in Sirte,” and by the “flagrant violations of the arms embargo,” Dujarric said.
He added it was “important for none of the parties to do anything that would make the situation worse.”
Since 2015, a power struggle has pitted the UN-recognized, Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) against putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who claims legitimacy from an eastern-based elected parliament.
Haftar has been trying unsuccessfully to seize the capital since April 2019, with support from neighboring Egypt, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.
On Saturday, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi warned that if pro-GNA forces advanced on the strategic city of Sirte — some 450 kilometers east of Tripoli — it could provoke a “direct” intervention by Cairo.
The GNA denounced the warning, labeling it a “declaration of war.”
The internationally recognized Libyan government has been under attack by Haftar’s forces since April 2019, with more than 1,000 killed in the violence.
The government launched Operation Peace Storm in March to counter attacks on the capital and recently regained strategic locations, including Al-Watiya air base and Tarhuna. — NNN-AGENCIES
