Volunteers are still finding dozens of bodies in Moamer Gaddafi’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-Gaddafi 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-Gaddafi 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.
