News / North Africa

Corpses of foreign Daesh members await repatriation from Libya: Officials

Sunday, 23 July 2017 6:03 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 23 July 2017 9:54 AM ]

Body bags are seen on the ground after being pulled from under the rubble by the Libyan Red Crescent following clashes in Sirte, Libya, on December 20, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Libyan officials say hundreds of corpses belonging to foreign members of Daesh remain in the country months after the Takfiri terrorist group’s defeat in the coastal city of Sirte.

The officials said the dead bodies had been shipped to the western Libyan city of Misrata and kept stored in freezers as authorities negotiated with other governments to decide their fate.

“Our team removed hundreds of bodies,” an unnamed member of the Misrata’s Organized Crime Intelligence Unit dealing with the bodies said in an interview with Reuters.

The source said that the bodies were being photographed and DNA samples were being collected by the unit to identify them.

The corpses reportedly belong to militants from countries such as Tunisia, Sudan, and Egypt.

It would be a sensitive issue to discuss the return of the bodies because the foreign governments are wary of acknowledging how many of their nationals fought alongside Daesh.

The source said the unit was waiting for a decision from the Libyan prosecutor general’s office, which was in talks with foreign governments over the return of the bodies.

Libyan forces removed Daesh from its stronghold in the city of Sirte last December, leaving the terrorist group in control of no urban territory in the North African country.

Fighters allied with Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) are seen around a tank during an operation against the Takfiri Daesh terrorists, in Sirte, Libya, on July 2, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Libya has faced crisis since a US-led military intervention resulted in the downfall of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country has been grappling with chaos and the emergence of numerous militant groups, including Daesh.

The country now has two governments, the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is based in Tripoli and led by Fayez al-Sarraj, and the other centered in the far east, in the city of Tobruk, where the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) commanded by military strongman Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar runs the affairs.

The UN supervised a series of negotiations in 2015 that led to the establishment of the GNA late that year. However, both Haftar and the allied eastern-based parliament have refused to recognize the UN-backed unity government.

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