Here Gaddafi's men trapped their prey – then threw in the grenades

Kim Sengupta discovers evidence of a recent atrocity by the feared Khamis Brigade

Saturday, 10 September 2011

Amr Dau Algala was picking through the ashes with a stick when he came across the charred and broken bones. A little later he found the buckle. "Only my brother was wearing a belt in our group. This looks like my brother's," he whispered, looking down at the twisted piece of metal.

Around 60 men, prisoners of Muammar Gaddafi's regime, died when guards first opened fire and then tossed grenades into the warehouse where they were being held. Among them was Amr and three of his brothers. They ran for their lives amid the flames, noise and confusion and escaped. A fourth, 25-year-old Abdullah, is missing.

"The last time I saw Abdullah was there, sitting in that corner," said Mr Algala, pointing at a blackened corner of the metal box, around 25 feet long and 20 feet wide, into which more than a hundred captives had been crammed. "He is young and looked very scared that morning. When the guards opened fire I started running. I looked back, but there was too much smoke, I could not see my brother. Some people got away after us, we are really hoping Abdullah was one of them, but we don't know."

Six mounds of reddish brown earth, in a stretch of ground next to the headquarters in Yarmuk of the 32nd Brigade, commanded by Khamis, Colonel Gaddafi's son, marked where the remains of the prisoners had been buried. Decomposed by the heat in the shallow graves most of them have been impossible to identify.

The revolutionaries in Libya claim that up to 50,000 people have died or disappeared in the hands of the regime's forces since the uprising began in February. Caution is needed about such numbers and the figure may well be too high. But it is also the case that what happened to the Algala brothers is just one of many examples of Gaddafi's forces taking vicious retribution in the dying days of the regime.
(FULL STORY HERE: Here Gaddafi's men trapped their prey – then threw in the grenades - Africa, World - The Independent)