Abu Salim Hospital Massacre [Masterlist]

Post created August 30, 2011
turned to a masterlist May 17, 2012
last update Aug. 21, 2012

<< The Tripoli Massacres

The original article/content has been removed to a new post )top link below) to make this a masterlist for organizing numerous sub-posts, some still forthcoming. The comments, first several, reflect the old content.

A more appropriate intro later. First, the video to explain visually what this is about:


Then the Report (added Aug. 21, 2012 - the anniversary)
Abu Salim Hospital Massacre: Report

Then the links. Previous Posts:
Original Article, Aug.2011: Abu Salim Trauma "Hospital" - A decent overview - detailed but a bit dated.

Women and Children Dead at Abu Salim Hospital: Not many but any is enough to cause concern.

Video: A Massacre at Abu Salim Trauma Hospital: A good video I made to introduce the issue, plus some related findings.

More Detailed Research (for the report)
Abu Salim Hospital Report: Research: With an eye to a CIWCL report, collected posts to address certain sub-issues.

For those interested, I'm accepting ideas about what needs to go in this report, how it should be organized, phrased, etc. The content and tone are open at the moment as I just start an outline that might work. I've decided to postpone release of the shed massacre report long enough to fully absorb new info and to get this second report started. So long as the first one, and possibly both, are out in time for the one-year anniversaries, I'll consider that a victory.

Anyone want to take a crack at proposing a report outline/approach or even writing a draft section? Or helping gather more links, videos, images, etc.?

Mainstream "Concern" Over Rebel Torture

January 28, 2012
last update, June 15, 2012

Note Feb. 19: Amnesty International has taken its concerns in a stronger and more formal direction with a report issued in mid-February. My fairly cynical post on that is here. Below is the post outlining the concerns over endemic government militia torture across "Liberated" Libya leading up to the Amnesty report.
---
As Felix alerts me, and to be lazy, the BBC reported, Jan. 26, Held Libyans 'died after torture' says Amnesty International

Several people have died after being tortured by militias in Libyan detention centres, human rights group Amnesty International has said.

It claimed to have seen patients in Tripoli, Misrata and Gheryan with open wounds to their head, limbs and back.

Meanwhile, charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has suspended operations in Misrata after treating 115 patients with torture-related wounds.

The UN says it is concerned about the conditions in which patients are held.

Conditions. Concern. Humanitarian intervention? Perhaps not, this time.

Terrible things happen in Libya, in a Beeb report. Just where the loyalist sleeper cells responsible are coming from isn't explained. Confusingly, the video report, hosted by Gabriel Gatehouse, in fact suggests the NATO/rebels government militias now in control are doing these things. How strange! Surely a last dying echo of Gaddafi's own evil, sadly imprinted on them and to be worked out with time to heal...

The guy from MSF says they quit Misrata, where the Gaddafi regime always said rebels were torturing captured loyalists. They quit, he says, because the wounds they were being asked to treat were in between torture sessions, to keep the victims from dying as the abuse continued.

The report explains the problem is not just in Misrata, but nationwide. It's a wide nation that NATO just bombed these torturers into control of, by the way, with enthusiastic support from the BBC. As always for them, the problem is "militias," which need to brought under control of the more "responsible" central government whom they formally supported. But these conniving scum bags in Tripoli take every change to reiterate that they intend as full a lockout and purge as possible of however many loyalists or former loyalists remain. This reign of terror might well be their way, not an aberration to be fixed. It might be part-and-parcel with, inspeparable from, the Western-sponsored free-market revolution in Libya's leadership. Something's got to keep the green masses down for that to work.

In fact, whose decision was it to show these victims to human rights groups, or to involve MSF, when rebel doctors or no doctors could help so much more quietly? Did they intend to make sure these examples were published, for Libyans to read about, as clearly as heads on spikes? The message: "You wanna be caught being a resistance supporter, do you? Think again..."

See Also:
Torture and lawlessness as Libya "victory high" ends

In Assabia, a different story was being told, in which residents not involved in the fighting were kidnapped and tortured, one to death, by Gharyan fighters.

"We are not Gaddafi supporters. Gharyan just want to legitimize their fight against us," said Ibrahim Mohammed, 23, who was covered head to toe in black and blue bruises which he says he got from beatings with metal chains in Gharyan. [...] his ankles were crushed in metal workshop clamps and that his finger and toe were smacked with metal bars. Blood seeped from under his fingernails during the interview.

"During my interrogations, I saw our main military commander in Gharyan lying on the floor in a pool of blood ... he was barely breathing and they had tied a metal pole to his arms and legs and were giving him electric shocks," Ibrahim said.

The body of this Assabia military commander, Ezzedine al-Ghool, was anonymously dropped at the Tripoli hospital where it was later collected by members of Assabia's city council, including Bashir al-Nwer, who says Gharyan fighters took the body to Tripoli to avoid escalating the conflict by returning the tortured body directly to Assabia.

Update Feb. 1
Thanks to Tawergha and Hurriya for this new development:
"Libya Rejects MSF torture allegations"
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE80U02A20120131

The aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said last Thursday it had stopped its work in detention centres in the city of Misrata because its medical staff were being asked to patch up detainees mid-way through torture sessions so they could go back for more abuse.

Libyan Foreign Minister Ashour bin Khayyal said it was not the policy of the ruling National Transitional Council, which has promised to make a break with Gaddafi-era practices and respect human rights, to use torture.

"Gaddafi's remnants committed actions that were an aggression to the revolution and to Libya and they will now receive the treatment they deserve," Khayyal told Reuters on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

Meaning, they won't be tortured, right? He continued:

"As a government, it is not our policy at all to commit torture because we, the Libyan people, suffered under these policies and we strongly reject it," Khayyal said.

"If there was torture, then it was not with the knowledge of the government or by the agreement of the government either. It may be actions by individuals, but we have not heard about the report you mention."

They can seemingly promise justice by torture to these captives, but not "as a government." Their proxies: "individuals," militias, special units, the cosmos and Allah himself, well that might just be who's making sure, systematically, that it's happening as promised and as the demonized devils deserve. The NTC does oppose torture of these human scum, and if they hear about it, they'll put an end to it. They haven't ever heard about it yet, despite the rest of the world hearing about it. They try their hardest, but find it very hard, perhaps, to hear certain things clearly these days...

Sounds fair enough, right?

Then, a response more from the Misrata militia front line - they deserve worse than they're getting. Men captured in Sirte and elsewhere by Misrata fighters are gathered in a small jail journalists were taken to. Mansour Daw, onetime chief of Internal Security is there, captured with Gaddafi on Oct. 20. He's had no lawyer, no news, no family contact, illegally. But no outward sign or complaint of torture. “The living conditions here are not bad, given the crimes these men have committed," one jailer told the AFP.

One prisoner is a soldier of the Khamis Brigade, Ibrahim Sadeq Khalifa, captured in Tripoli. He has the same problems of isolation (it seems to be standard there), plus beatings he speaks of:

He was transferred on Sept. 5 to the Misrata prison after spending about two weeks with the ex-rebels, who he said beat him repeatedly.

Although there were no glaring signs of torture, a scar was visible near his collar bone.

“It is from a cigarette burn. The thuwar (anti-Qaddafi revolutionaries) did that,” he said when probed by AFP, speaking hesitatingly as jailor Ibrahim Beatelmal approached.

None of that happened in the Misrata prison, he implied, or had anything to do with his candid "confession" there to AFP that he took part in yet another version of the "Khamis Brigade shed massacre," claiming to have burned the captives alive, in contradiction to nearly all other accounts and common sense - how does a fire started Aug. 23 - or even Aug. 22 as Khalifa wrongly states - continue smoldering right through the 28th?

Poor Khalifa's account and its problems are covered here, alongside another "confessed" killer in the same crime. Like the rest,these witnesses conflict with each other and with the rest, and with some more wholesome clues of the physical and temporal sorts, suggesting the rebels piled their own victims here and charred them blank before dozens of different stories somehow latched onto them.

But the "mass murder's" bizarre, apparently coerced story, plus lack of visible torture clues (aside from a cigarette burn), was presented by as the strongest case that there was no torture in Misrata at all. To illustrate this, in fact, seems to have been the main purpose of the exercise.

“If we wanted to torture these prisoners, Khalifa is the best candidate for that. He has burnt alive 150 men,” [guard Ibrahim] Beatelmal said, as he smoked a cigarette.

“When he came to our prison he weighed 65 kilos. Now he is more than 80 kilos. That would not happen if you are tortured. I am angry at these human rights people. I don’t even want to see their faces.”

And if he does, he might have to start cutting those faces. His name almost says in English "Beat 'em all." How appropriate.

This devil confessed to something that was supremely evil, but that quite possibly never happened. Confessions are of things that are true, so we should refrain from calling this one. It's only a claim, another in a long line. People credit stories like this because they think "why confess to/claim something with the death penalty unless it's the truth? What lie is worth dying for?" Two options could explain it:
1) A deferred-sentence plea deal, life sentence or even early release instead of death in trade ... for what? The simple truth?
2) Death is the nice option, and it was made clear by his torturers that the choice was his to make.

Feb. 3: Thanks to Petri for the tip - Human Rights Watch has it documented and is calling for action: Libya: Diplomat Dies in Militia Custody
He used to be a diplomat in France. In late January he was summoned by the local authorities (Zintan brigades?), questioned about his loyalty, arrested, then dropped off dead in a Zintan hospital next morning. His body showed signs of pretty egregious torture - toenails were pulled off, for one.

Now what amazing stories did he come up with before his demise? Something that might blow the socks off Khalifa's story?

Also, an older report from September I just noticed:
Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 13

"Whatever is happening between the [former] government forces and the rebels, there are lots of people who are sabotaging and misusing the situation, and are taking advantage for revenge on each other," says a family member of non-Libyan man whose injuries at the hands of anti-Qaddafi forces have shocked the family and friends.

The man, who had worked for a former regime member who has since fled Libya, was handed over to pro-NTC fighters at a checkpoint. Relatives told the Monitor that he was subjected, for several hours, to electric shocks, severe beating, and threats that he would be killed if he did not confess to having weapons and his body would be thrown into the Mediterranean Sea where it would "never be found."

The man was eventually saved when a rebel intervened and vouched for him. The suspected Qaddafi supporter received apologies from the local officer. "They think that just because they have a gun, or they have contacts, they can have anyone picked up and torture them," says this family member.

And as long as they can torture the person into "admitting" he has a weapon, then all the torture is justified by his armed action against the new government. He can be punished for all the loyalist crimes that happened or that rebels say happened.

All isolated incidents! Bad apples, here and there, a lot of them. But there are some good apples too! They just don't get invited to the torture sessions...

Update Feb. 12:
An unusually critical piece from the UK Daily Mail reads almost like something targeted against the old government, except much better supported with facts. It covers MSF's allegations in a bit more details, and adds more on Amnesty's efforts, which seem sincere enough.

Amnesty International has documented thousands of cases of abuse and torture, and handed photographs to The Mail on Sunday. Senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera has protested to the National Transitional Council (NTC) without success.
‘I have seen people who have been beaten with iron bars and rubber pipes, some hardly able to walk,’ she said.

‘Men are hung by handcuffs from a door frame and attacked with electric wires. Tasers are applied to their ears and genitals, and finger and toenails are torn out.’
She has evidence of 12 deaths. No investigations have been carried out by the authorities. ‘There is not a single case where anyone has been brought to justice,’ she said. ‘There is a total lack of accountability.’

Of course there have been no investigations. They have to hear about something first, then be able to do anything about it next. If they can't do one, why bother with the other? Besides, the Misrotten rebels say it's they who are worried about a lack of accountability for crimes they suffered.

Commander Mohamed al-Deaka is a former construction engineer. He was defensive about abuse by his men. ‘Yes it happens here, but it’s everywhere in Libya,’ he said.
‘We have to use force to make prisoners give answers. Our city [Misrata] was destroyed in the fighting. Now we want to know who carried out the destruction, who raped our women and stole our property."

The rape part in particular - they find no admissions odd, since they know it happened. This in turn is due in large part to the famous "confession" of two Tawerghan teenagers, later found to be unreliable enough Amnesty called them out on it. That the rest aren't in agreement with that inconsistent batch of coerced nonsense is clearly frustrating, and the resort to torture to force confirmation totally understandable. (??!!)

Mainly the Mail article speaks of a video, posted three months ago by site contributor Tawergha. It shows a man from Tawergha (the town closed down by Misrata rebels) being tortured. It has information to go with it here, and screen grabs, courtesy of the directior of the "al-Fellah ‘internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camp in a suburb of Tripoli." Here, Misrata brigades arrested a former shopkeeper named Saleh Barhoun Gersh, who had dressed in women's clothes as a disguise, it's said. He's injured and bleeding, shown being whipped and electrocuted with wires. His tormentors say, as translated:

‘You are from Towerga, you dog. You say you did nothing in Misrata, so why are you in disguise? We found weapons in every house in Towerga. Your hand is bleeding and we hope it is paralysed.’

The men chant as they reach for live electric wires: ‘Everyone we catch is innocent, they say. ‘Well, blood will come from your eyes and nose until you admit what you have done. We’ve caught 60 of you so far and none of you did anything.’

And they know that can't be true. How about all the weapons? It's not like they were threatened with an attack or anything to defend themselves against. These could only be for killing and raping in Misrata. Sadly, the article adds "It is not clear when the footage was taken or what happened to Mr Gersh." This suggests he never returned. He's either dead or in captivity with no acknowledgment, which is never good. Perhaps they got confirmation, finally, that those kids were right, and finally have a better reason yet to be sure all the other Tawerghans they harass, rape, arrest, torture, and kill will have deserved it. Updates May 19:
NTC Prisons as the Answer

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-libya-unbre8491lk-20120510,0,2026959.story

since pulled. Alternate source: 

http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFL1E8GAM1D20120510

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Several prisoners likely were tortured to death at a detention center in Libya under government control, the United Nations said on Thursday as it urged the country to make stamping out such practices a top priority. Libya's Justice Ministry has control of 31 detention centers with some 3,000 detainees, but about 4,000 prisoners are still in the custody of Libyan revolutionary brigades, U.N. special envoy for Libya Ian Martin told the U.N. Security Council. Of the detention centers under government authority, Martin said "control over these facilities is often shared with other parties, including the brigades that had been running them."

 The U.N. human rights agency and aid groups have accused the brigades of torturing detainees, many of whom are sub-Saharan Africans suspected of fighting for the toppled government of Muammar Gaddafi during Libya's nine-month civil war.

 "Mistreatment and torture of detainees continue," Martin said. "UNSMIL (the U.N. Mission in Libya) expressed deep concern regarding the deaths of three individuals at a detention center in Misrata ... under the authority of the Ministry of Interior."

 "The deaths all occurred on April 13 and we have credible information that they were a direct result of torture, as well as information that at least seven other persons were tortured at the same facility," he said. ... Martin said allegations of torture had also been made at detention facilities elsewhere in Libya, including Tripoli, Zawiya and Zintan.

"Things They Don't Even Do In Israel"

Horrible stuff was reported by this Sirte native taken to Misrata after losing an arm and a leg in battle. The usual beatings and torture widely reported plus widespread rape (of male prisoners), cooking people alive, slicing people up, castrating, targeting loyalist officers and people named Muammar. This guy's story is extreme, but it also rings true in the delivery. There's enough info value it's worth its own post for further discussion/development. That's here.

Confronted with such tales of barbarity, a skeptic might argue this is all fabricated, some desparate pro-Gaddafi propaganda to get the world community to help turn back the "progress" made by the revolution. But the relevant elites will never play that game, even if it isn't a game. Green resistance should save it's breath for waterboarding if they're making things up. No one under the control structure is able to help them at all. A few do-gooders at the orgs who might care enough, kept well at arm-length by overwhelming militia force. In the space created, a medieval purge of body and mind is unfolding, as the West tacitly allows the rapid corrective surgery it knew would be required. The idea was always, with a few sanctions, some light bombing, etc., to bring reality in line with the fantasy of an "Arab Spring" groundswell there, to help "the Libyan people" realize their universal desire for change. It's those who chose to defy that tightly-scripted narrative that have been the problem, of whatever size, and the problem would have to be erased sooner or later. And we're hearing from ostensible direct witnesses to that erasure. And through them, we might have the true flavor of this second and longer phase of "the people's" movement for "liberation."

Audio and transcript here:
http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/shocking-interview-with-a-man-who-has-been-tortured-for-months-in-misuratas-jails-3-video/

June15: More extreme torture I missed before (thanks, Hurriya)
An AP story of March, since pulled from almost all sources; One Chinese page that still has it:
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/worldlook/1/443940.shtml
An excerpt:

At a Misrata garage that has been turned by militiamen into a makeshift prison, one detainee, Abdel-Qader Abdel-Nabi, shows what remains of his left hand: The fingers have been cut off in a ragged line about halfway down. Abdel-Nabi said militiamen lashed his hand with a horse whip until the fingers were severed.
　　"Then they threw me bleeding down the stairs," he said. His interrogators were trying to get him to confess to working with Gadhafi’s forces during last year’s civil war and collaborating in the killing of rebel fighters. 　　
Around 800 other detainees are held in the same facility, which militiamen allowed The Associated Press to visit. The detainees are accused of involvement in killings, torture, rape and other crimes under Gadhafi. There are no courts at the moment capable of addressing the suspicions, so the detainees are entirely at the mercy of militiamen. 　　
Medics in a clinic set up in the garage said they have treated dozens tortured in interrogations. One medic said he had seen nine prisoners whose genitalia had been cut off, and others given electric shocks. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation by the militiamen.

As for Hr. Abdel-Nabi did not speak anonymously. Has he suffered further retaliation? Is he dead? Missing half his right hand now too?

Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre: The Dead Outside the Shed

Original Posting, November 15, 2011
Deleted for complete re-write, April 29
re-write complete May 3, 2012, last edits May 7

<< The Tripoli Massacres
     << The Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre

Those Not Anonymized by Fire
In addition to the 45 or so people charred to cinders within it, there were at least 32 bodies discovered immediately around the site of the Yarmouk massacre shed. These were either in or just outside the prison yard or across the street. There are eleven of these that have been photographed and can be placed and described, as they are below.

It’s not entirely certain they were killed by the same people, but the rebels are clear in blaming these killings as well on Gaddafi loyalists only. Considering the information on racist rebel brutality up to this point, this is unlikely. These other bodies were left in the open but primarily un-burnt, and so had surface features like skin (mostly black African) and clothing (partially military) left intact.

These bodies were widely noted by journalists, counted in varying sub-sets, but given real thought and scrutiny by very few. Clemens Höges, describing the scene in the walled compound right around the central shed, for Der Spiegel English, ventured some worthwhile observations:

An alternative explanation, however, would be that the rebels massacred their prisoners on Friday evening after the battle and tried to pin the crime on Gadhafi's forces. But on Saturday evening, one of the bodies lying outside was swarming with thousands of tiny maggots, which would be impossible if the man had only been killed the day before.

Some of the bodies (#4, #7) have visible maggots nearby in some images, and this does suggest death at least a day prior to the acknowledged rebel conquest. But there are, in fact, signs that the base was taken some days before the rebels acknowledge taking it, a subject discussed elsewhere (best here). For this article we will consider it an open possibility and see what the evidence suggests. As Höges further noted:

There are a number of inconsistencies in the explanations about the Khellet Ferjan massacre. The four dead men outside the warehouse whose corpses were not burned appear to have been powerfully built, dark-skinned men, as far as can be judged after days in the Libyan heat. It is possible that they were soldiers who wanted to desert or did not want to be involved in the massacre. Ali Boukhatwa confirmed this version of events and also said that the soldiers had been tortured.

Boukhatwa, an all-knowing local from a few hundred feet away, is sure that the black soldiers defected, were tortured and then executed, by Gaddafi villains, and left un-buried and un-burnt before the racist rebel hordes ever screeched in there. That is one allegedly well-informed local. But not quite as well-informed or connected as “Dr. Salem Rajab,” who pops up frequently in the exploration below.

 The chattering so-called witnesses aside, here is whatwe can see about the eleven exterior victims, listed in order seen/left-right, etc. A map for reference:

The Three Removed Early
These three victims were seen in situ in a video posted by Batruna, from late on the 26th, filmed about 8 pm by the dimming light of a recently set sun. These were removed from the scene about 10:00 AM on the 27th, laid on a flatbed truck and driven away, as seen in a sequence of three photographs taken by Seamus Murphy, VII images. [1 - 2 - 3]

These were among the first news photos of the area, and the lighting, with moderate shadow length, suggests mid-morning, say 9:30 or 10:00 AM. The truck they're laid on was then driven away, and within an hour (about 11am) Stuart Ramsay of Sky News would be in the same exacts pot the first photo was shot from for the first news video, speaking to Dr. Salem al Farjani, pretending to be a witness Dr. Salem Rajab (he keeps popping up below). (See an image here of the green "Gaddafi loyalist" graffiti added between takes, exactly after Murphy's one snapshot).

Clearly Sky News didn’t capture these bodies, and no one later did. Only to our knowledge that rebel video and those early photos.

Exterior Victim #1: The Man in the Truck
This victim is a mid-toned male, a bit overweight and perhaps middle-aged, in bloodied underclothes, with what seems to be torture to the arms, a slit throat, and at one point a charred face. His brutalized body was seen being loaded from a police transport truck (paddy wagon) to flatbed truck in the Murphy photos, after the other two bodies were already placed. As the one visible victim with clear signs of burning, he stands out; his face is quite gruesome to behold there, crusted charcoal black with orange peeking through, what looks like blue-tinged remnants of melted eyeballs. His shoulders look blistered and cracked, as if heated but shielded from flame. A burning tire “necklace” seems like a good explanation for all of this.

Small view for those who don't need the
graphic images large. For the rest,
right-click, new window

His body was also visible splayed out alone inside the one truck the night of the 26th, about 14 hours before that removal. He’s laid flat, face-up, amidst a pool of blood and an overturned bowl. The dim view and low resolution make it hard to be certain, but the skin of his face and shoulder seem smooth and normal colored then, not burnt at all. It would seem someone set that fire in the hours before Murphy’s views. Rebel forces, not Gaddafi loyalists, were in charge at that time.

This victim’s arms show signs of torture in both views, bruised, bloodied, perhaps misshapen, an apparent slice in the right forearm. The first view shows much blood on his chest and the shoulder straps of his shirt, centered around the neck area with darkness of a wound or of clotted blood visible there. A slit throat, looking like an Islamist execution method, might help explain the fire, set around his neck to melt and char the skin, and obscure that clue. It didn’t work; Murphy’s photo seems to show a serious slice across the victim’s lower throat. (see bottom, middle).

They might also have wanted to hide the face of someone they didn’t want seen as one of the victims. That effort seems to have fared better. Using fire to erase clues is supposed to be the idea that led to all those bodies being charred blank inside the massacre shed? But whoever victim #1 was and whoever killed him, it seems someone on the rebel side tried to use fire to destroy the evidence of it.


Exterior Victim #2: The Crawler

This victim is on the left among the two first bodies laid across the truck bed. Situated face-up, we see he could almost pass for a rebel fighter – bearded, stocky, in clothing both civilian and yet potentially militant. In the August 26 video, it appears as if he died crawling out of the massacre shed, only making it a few yards before expiring with his head resting against his forearm.

When we see his underside in the morning, it shows massive bleeding of the abdominal area, and unclear issue of the left side, including chest. He was possibly just shot, or perhaps subjected to some broad trauma like being crushed beneath the tires of a heavy vehicle. He might have died from Pneumothorax from internal injuries, explaining the sudden death from suffocation. He might have been dropped in the smoldering shed as he was dying, just to get a crawler for dramatic effect.

Despite being smeared in dirt from crawling or dragging, his anguished face is relatively clear and would likely be recognizable to family, who may or may not be willing to speak up.

Exterior Victim #3: The Runner

This is a mid-tone male, apparently shot while running from the shed area to the gate, judging by the sandal flung off his foot nearby. Dressed in a white shalwar kameez outfit and sprawled out face-down, his body is uncovered except apparently the head and shoulders. There’s no visible blood in the rebel video, but it just pans over him from a distance. Seamus Murphy’s photo shows widespread injuries and bleeding beneath the clothes, especially the left side, from chest to knee. His head is never visible.

Journalist Janine DiGiovani wrote after her visit “There are places in the world, like Srebrenica in Bosnia, like Hama in Syria, where the ghosts of death linger long after the event. … the field is scattered with objects the prisoners left behind—a single sandal, perhaps lost while fleeing.” She might refer to this same sandal, and the video confirms her impression, with the one sandal near his bare feet, the other perhaps being the dark shape about six feet away, or perhaps missing.

The Mattress Victims
The next three victims were killed on three mattresses together at the shed’s east end. They're the only bodies covered with blankets in the customary gesture, and that only because they had their own, apparently caught sleeping beneath them. They seem to be wearing bedclothes, and their shoes are removed nearby. DiGiovanni noted “a plastic bag of toiletries hanging on a nail in the wall—but otherwise the place is eerily silent.” This was outside the shed, where soldiers slept, right above a pair of black sneakers, best shown in a high-res photo (allegedly of rebel fighters) by Louafi Larbi.

Military uniforms hang alongside green flags or lay nearby, now partially tossed across their bodies as if to clarify that these were Gaddafi army fighters. Two of them are black men. Our local Salem told French paper Liberation they were in fact soldiers, “who refused to participate in the killing.” Mimicking the scene, as if he had seen it, he continued “and the mercenaries killed them on the spot.”

Perhaps the alleged final conversation was something like this: Officer: “Soldiers, it’s time to kill. You, take this Kalashnikov, you these grenades. You, this other gun, and watch for escapees.” Soldier 1: “Come on, you just woke us up.” Soldier 2: “Yeah, I’m not ready to get up yet. Can you let us lay here just five more minutes?” Officer: “You are refusing? Mercenary, kill them all.” Mindless African slave: (Bang bang, and also torture sounds, order unclear) These three more killed for refusing were heroes, like so many others found in Free Libya from February onwards, left to rot by their rebel beneficiaries.

These are numbered starting from the gate, as Martin Fricker noted for the UK Daily Mirror “the first thing we saw was the corpse of a Gaddafi loyalist, his decomposing remains partially covered by a blanket. Nearby there were two more bodies, one with his hands and feet bound.”

Exterior Victim #4: Outside the Guard House
This first victim you'd see is laid just outside the small shack attached to the massacre shed, face down and hidden beneath an especially colorful floral blanket, at least on the 27th and after. On the night of the 26th, it was a pink one with squares (upper left, Batruna video), still there later under the orange blanket someone felt was warranted. Only this victim’s bare feet are usually visible, but sometimes his right hand, left arm, once his head, and once even his uncovered lower body was seen. All glimpses suggest with near-certainty, by skin color and hair type, this is a black man of African descent.

The Aljwahr Free Media video shows the back of his head, with a likely bullet hole near the top, and his bent left forearm, decaying. The arms position and being off the mattress suggests he may have been face-up at one point, then rolled over on his right side. If so, it was prior to the first known view (upper left). The lower right view of the victim's feet is by Moises Saman, NYT (a black and white version, and an almost identical view by Bryan Denton - thanks Felix for the links). These seem to show injuries on the right foot, but in different spots, so likely an illusion of artifacts. But the uncovered view (lower left, TV1 video (image stitched together for widest/best view possible, around the TV1 logo) reveals he’s dressed only in underwear shorts, and displays with less ambiguity a painful-looking wound at the tender spot behind the right knee.

A massive pool of blood, watered down with rain or whatever, surrounds and soaks the body, its mattress and the ground. The bloody water pooled along the shack’s wall, along with a very swollen right hand, can be seen in an unusual photograph by Szlankó Bálint (right, middle). A swollen hand can suggest prolonged binding, but the wrists aren’t visible.

Bálint’s images were taken on August 28, by the established visual chronology, although mis-labeled as Aug. 29 (the posting date, likely). There’s also a sandal shown and maggots - large-full-grown, ready to pupate maggots. These would be the first-hatched, the pioneers. The vast majority would be smaller and grubbing away in the thousands beneath the blanket. This is a timeline clue the CIWCL cannot read precisely, but an expert could, and it would greatly narrow down the date of killing. I think it was around the 24th, give or take.


Exterior Victim #5: Bound Feet

Just past the alleged guard shack is a covered but open area between it and the massacre shed. There, under a tin roof, the other two mattress victims were laid with their own beds, with #5 the more visible by far. His body is laid face-down and covered with a green blanket so only his lower legs are seen, clad in blue sweatpants or pajama pants. His feet, decaying, swollen, and light-skinned, are tied together with a long stretch of green rope. Yuri Kozyrev took a photo (unused here) captioned “the dead body of a member of Gaddafi's forces lies on a mattress...”

These feet are shown frequently in the news videos, the rest of him not at all. The two amateur videos from the 27th do pan across the other end, giving us a faint glimpse of a head shaded under the blanket. It’s round, possibly bald, and reddish in color, at the moment seen. Clemens Höges had described the scene for Der Spiegel “Next to the warehouse, under a corrugated iron roof, lies a tied-up man who had been shot in the face.” He’s face-down, and always covered, so this is a little puzzling. This victim was killed and/or bled massively across both mattresses. The striped one held his lower body. The checkered bed, where his upper body rotted unseen for days, had that end later collapse in decay, or something to that effect. (upper right)

The rope seems to have its knot moved around over time, and the length was tossed from the position of Aug. 26 (lower left) to the right side in all later images. What do the feet mean? Bound hands tend to suggest execution, as does removal of any footwear. But tied ankles are something that’s rarely seen in any other rebel/alleged-Gaddafi executions.The green color of it is, of course, supposed to suggest Gaddafi loyalists did the tying. It's quite likely from the swelling and abrasion that he was hanged upside down, but not apparently for very long. The mud on his left knee (lower right) suggests he was dragged a bit.

Exterior Victim #6: Facial Trauma 

The third body a bit further in, rolled against the shed’s west wall of corrugated iron, and so less visible. His feet only are often visible, despite being laid face-up and not being fully covered like #5. While outsider cameras glossed over this corpse, two amateur Libyan videos pan right in on it, but in lower quality, showing the only visible face of the three mattress victims. It’s not pretty.

He’s clothed in some baggy bed-clothes, blood-soaked, half-covered with camouflage fatigues, what might be a mid-sized green flag, and a pastel-colored blanket. His skin tone is middling dark, and his face in close-up shows a wide-nostril African face, yellowing with decay for some reason. Clemens Höges had described “tied-up man who had been shot in the face,” as seen by him late on the27th. He does have a hole in his face, perhaps too big for an entry wound. It might be an exit wound after shot in back of head, or another kind of traumatic facial injury centered on the obliterated left eye: surrounding tissue torn open and up, mid-face possibly pushed in, looking collapsed.

However, this body is not bound hand or foot in any images of the time he was there, the left arm hanging free against his mattress, and the right laid across his chest (this and his position suggest he was perhaps face down on the bed before, but was rolled over by someone curious. Höges apparently merged the two bodies into one: #5’s feet and #6’s face (specifying a second mattress victim out of two, "a few steps away.")

While no images show it so, this body might have been bound at one point; the left wrist shows a curious advanced decay suggesting something like the super-tight plastic cuffs we see rebels put on Black men.

Three Peripheral Victims Seen in Situ
These outlying victims suggest action and a slight distance from the shed, and tend to be described by rebel witnesses as fellow escapees from the Gaddafi massacre. It might be silly for the dozens of exclusively light-skinned Arab escapees to claim the camo-clad black men killed at their posts as fellow prisoners and even family. But the following three brutalized black men in civilian clothes might all have been people who ran with them away from the grenades, depending who you ask.


Exterior Victim #7: The Man by the Toppled Wall
This clearly black-skinned man was found laying next to partially toppled low wall on the shed compound’s west end. He’s shown well in a Human Rights Watch photo of sunset on Aug. 27 (upper left here). [with this article] A CBC photo by Derek Stoffel [with article] shows a different angle, while their video doesn’t show him at all (it mentions five bodies and shows four, but does include rebels or locals praying over a body in this spot at 2:09). Aljwahr Free Media shows him fairly close-up (lower right), highlighting the burnt or decaying shoulder, but leaving the details of his face just as mysterious as the others. Maggots are visible on in his inner arm and on the blue tarp that had apparently covered him until someone decided to expose another “Gaddafi crime.”

He might well be an alleged escapee, per one witness anyway. “Omar” spoke to Physicians for Human Rights (their pseudonym), giving the same biographical details as Bashir Mohammed Al-Sedik/Germani, but a different escape story (And Bashir in return has a different story altogether from, but the same body as, a Mohammed Bahir - all explained here). It seems like “Omar” was trying to explain exterior victim #7 with this story to PHR: "Another detainee attempted to escape by climbing through a hole in the warehouse wall, but guards immediately shot and killed him." The rest of the prisoners were beaten in punishment, and later a guard told Omar, whispering through the same hole, that “the guards had left the man who had tried to escape to rot in the sun.” The hole in question is visible here (HRW's photo, upper middle of upper left image), not far from where this body was left rotting in the sun.

Exterior Victim #8: The Man on the Stairs

This black-skinned male of African descent, beefy build, bald-headed, eyes apparently gouged out. He was apparently killed where he lays high on the stairs attached to the compound’s southwest corner. His baggy clothing, possibly bedclothes or a shalwar kameez, is soaked in blood almost uniformly, suggesting multiple shots, stabs, or whatever all over. Apparently of concern at time of his death was a seriously bloody injury somewhere around his groin. The CBC filmed this body on the 28th, but only the lower half (bottom left image), with a baby blanket (not there earlier). This was covering most of his blood, not his body, with some cartoon character giving a thumbs-up sign. Aljwahr Free Media’s video sees him from above, as does CBC’s. A photo by Tyler Hicks from the 27th (upper left) shows a Libyan man looking down at about the same angle. From the desiccation of the hands shown in the CBC video, it would seem he died at least two or three days prior to that - no later than the 26th and probably no earlier than the 24th.

This victim is the clearest alleged escapee of them all, with numerous sources suggesting this history. His body is best-seen in a photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images Europe (dated August 26, but app. from the following day, across the middle/background here and the lower right). The caption there reads in part: “the man is believed to be a detainee that had tried to escape, only to be shot by pro-Gaddafi loyalists." The CBC's explanation is about the same As reporter Susan Ormiston related from the other side of the wall from the victim, at 1:55 in the video:

Some of them tried to escape but failed. It appears a man ran from the building over to this white truck, was shot several times as he tried to scale this wall, and on the other side, he didn't make it.

Höges wrote for Der Spiegel how a body that might be this one “lies on a property directly next to the compound.” As described by witness Rafaii “One (escapee) got over the wall and into the neighboring property, where he was shot.”

None of this shooting in the back as he climbed a wall explains victim #8's eyes. The Berehulak photo shows they have something wrong with them, squeezed in pain and perhaps ruptured, although it’s ill-defined (there’s also a possible large, round hole in his right temple, but this could be a shadow artifact). His head part of that photo is cropped, blown-up, and enhanced, at lower right. Dominique Soguel for AFP had mentioned the three mattress victims laying around as "a fourth eyeless corpse rapidly decomposed in the heat." Mr. Sabri Tabbal, self-described onetime shed prisoner, said of those less fortunate “some of them had their legs crushed, their eyes gouged out, behavior that was …” something he couldn’t even put into words. (video, 5:40) This body seems the most likely match, although no images are 100% clear. There is the huge blood smear near his head. This could be from anything, including his eye sockets, squirting out around some Misrata thug’s thumbs, possibly adding poignancy to the blanket motif.

Exterior Victim #9: The Man in the House
Australian ABC News’ correspondent, following on a late visit on August 29, reported “suddenly, there's a shout from the over the fence. Another body has been found. Quickly [the rebels] walk around to a house overlooking the base.” In a small dirt-floored room, the body was shown, already massively covered with lime powder. He was then removed in a body bag by Red Cross and Red Crescent people, it's said to an unnamed "city hospital" to be identified and reunited with his family. [video]

This body seems solidly built, and possibly wearing the same baggy clothes as the man on the stairs. He lies on his back, limbs out as if pinned down. It might be that the extensive lime across the floor marks where he shed blood, which would be widely. It didn't soak in so well where his body meets the floor, and the surrounding red mud suggests major blood loss all over, again not unlike the stairs victim. Skin color is hard to make out beneath the pile of powder, but the fingers and toes at least tend to suggest that he’s a dark-skinned black man.

His face also shows possible blood from the eyes like the last victim, reddening the lime still (detail, upper right). From a distance, it looks frozen in a wide-mouthed scream, but on a closer look, it seems his face is just caved in. The chin is there, but the space above it, including the nose at least, is just a gaping hole. The powder is poured on thick here, but it just fell into the crater rather than obscuring it. This looks like someone smashed in the face - and very deeply - with whatever was heavy, blunt, and handy.

The house in question is presumably among those just outside the south/west compound wall, and appears vacant and unfinished. It’s not clear which of those houses it might be, but the two westernmost ones seem more equipped with air conditioners and such, leaving the middle house more likely, or possibly the easternmost one (taller and so “overlooking the base.”)

The Christian Science Monitor seemed to have seen him as well (Aug. 30 article) and decided "in an adjacent house lay another body, which likely belonged to an escaped prisoner who had hidden there and died from his wounds." In a Christian Scientist's mind, how long does it usually take for a man with his face crushed deep into his brain to die after fleeing the attack scene? From the above, and from the indoors locale, this is possibly the body that escapee Abdulrahim Ibrahim Bashir was trying to explain to Human Rights Watch. He told them back on the 27th that "he escaped his detention in the warehouse unharmed together with Abdulsalam and Hussain, last name unknown, who were brothers from Zlitan.” The brothers were both wounded in the escape. Bashir's own account said:

After I escaped on August 23, I hid in a house outside the compound for three days, and saw that the guards were still there. [...] Two other detainees were wounded with me. [The rebels] took Abdulsalam from Zlitan to the hospital [after they arrived three days later], but his brother Hussain died in my arms in the house. I left his body inside the house...

What a strange decision no one amongst the brother Abdulsalam (Al-Ashour?) or the rescuers did anything to dissuade him from. A fellow heroic escapee, left to rot like... well, like this guy. He was left like the man who climbed out the hole, but this time it was the rebel/survivors being negligent. Also, there is no loving embrace evident in this corpse's death pose. But as an ridiculously alleged escapee, he shares yet another similarity with the brutalized man on the stairs.


Dozer Deliveries
The last two bodies were dumped in the prison yard mid-day on the 28th after being brought in by earth-mover/bulldozer. One was seen being dumped, the other being scooped up. Neither was in the yard prior, and it’snot clear what having them there added except spice and horror. They and their surroundings are seen best together in a photo by Szlankó Bálint.

Exterior Victim #10: Missing Face

This, again, appears to be a well-built black male, in disarrayed civilian clothes, black shorts and white short torn away, exposing his chest. The flesh of his face and lower right shin stripped away, presumably by feral dogs. Various views of the body laying here were captured by the CBC’s cameras, as well as the Bálint photo. His left leg shows advanced decay (CBC view, upper left), and has likely dead for more at least three days

Before that, body #10 was seen in a Yuri Kozyrev photo (Iranian re-post) dangling from the earth-mover's shovel driving just outside the compound’s southwest corner before entering the prison yard (lower left). There are three pirated Chinese photographs, one stamped as from Life, showing this same body, in greater resolution, being dumped into this precise spot and posture it would later be seen in. In sequence: 1 - 2 - 3 These are apparently shot mid-day on the 28th, by someone with Getty Images (possibly Daniel Berehulak).

The first two let us see his dangling legs and clarify that his left shin is stripped of flesh, and the third image allows us an unusual brief glimpse of his head, enhanced at lower right. The tops and sides seem to be covered with skin, but his face itself seems to be gone. Literally, a skeleton's eye and nose socket remain, clean white bone. It looks strange. Other views like middle left (Bálint) fail to confirm this, but are consistent. His head is turned, and his face seems to just stop – no hint of the nose, cheeks, etc. that there should be.

Another anomaly seen in that middle left image is the apparent long, deep slices all over the upper body. Ineffective predation, torture, or something else? The tissue discoloration around them is also hinted in the Getty dumping photos, perhaps lightening/yellowing with decay along those injury lines.

Exterior Victim #11: White Sneakers

Another body only appearing in the yard on the 28th, was seen on a pile of dirt next to body #10, apparently dumped later and unseen. This was a well-built light-skinned male, app. bald-headed, potentially militant. He wore western civilian clothes, slacks and a t-shirt, and was the only one of the exterior victims clearly shod, in white Adidas sneakers. The back of his head is visible, but not his face, being completely buried in the dirt – perhaps for being eaten away like #10’s. Both exposed arms look unharmed, however. There’s no visible decay, suggesting possibly a later death than the others.

CBC filmed this one laid out, besides Bálint’s photo. What might be the same body was seen earlier in the day by Channel 4, near a refrigerator in a copse of trees (upper right). The location seems to be just outside the compound, across the wall from a tall crane, which was at the south end. Therefore, it’s in the small courtyard (see map). A Hungarian video shows a body there being scooped up by a bulldozer (lower right), and a tree root of some size juts out of the dirt near his head.
An Outside Body that Doesn’t Count

On the morning of the 28th, a wooden shipping crate marked “fragile” appeared just outside the shed’s entrance and stayed there most of the day. Inside was an apparent corpse – a blackened torso partly exposed, but nothing visibly skeletal. It’s mostly wrapped unseen with in a colorful blanket, that almost suggests mattress victim #4. But that body is still laying in the background.

This seems to be one of the less-charred bodies removed from inside the shed. As a reporter for Liberation wrote (rough translation from French):

Six volunteers who had come from the cement plant adjacent to the barracks [are] driving two vehicles, slowing down the sides already lowered. They wear surgical masks, chanting "Allahu" and "Akbar," and begin to collect, hands in rubber gloves, a skull, a chest, a tibia and what they think is a fibula. They wrapped this in a sunflower motif blanket in a coffin which they then lifted together on their shoulders.

Why this corpse was removed early isn’t totally clear. Perhaps it was to illustrate that someone had recognized that as his brother’s charred body, and wanted it home for a proper Islamic burial. Despite the non-skeletal state of some torsos, all faces were reduced to skull, so this is highly unlikely to have really happened. Once it was past the cameras, perhaps they dumped in a ditch they would take the cameras to later…

Others Reported / Totals / Re-Burials / Open Questions
Anthony Loyd wrote in The Australian how “seven bodies - all of males in civilian clothing, killed by gunshots - lay around the yard, while three other corpses lay in nearby alleys.” Alex Thomson of Channel Four News (Aug. 28 footage) said "we can't show any of it, but there are bodies all over this area, many with hands and feet tied prior, apparently, to execution." They did show the locations - a dirt alleyway, and as mentioned a copse of trees with what might be body #11 (see still, upper right in #11's grahphic). From this, it’s quite likely body #10 is also among these three or more, and its dog-eaten face might explain why they wouldn’t show it. Saad Basir, apparently there on the 28th, wrote in his Warscapes account "prisoner transport vehicles were also present at the site, and some contained bodies."

 Just from this we may have little adding to the eleven seen by the 29th, but all-in-all, by that same time, there were several further bodies reported. ABC’s AM program on August 30 reported that twenty bodies total had been found “outside the warehouse,” with a further twelve “across the road.” In a visit apparently on Monday the 29th, their interviewee “Salem Rajab,” no ordinary local, was able to say:

SALEM RAJAB: ... [F]or the process of identification in the future we put them in a special plastic and we put them in a grave here nearby in the corner.
ANNE BARKER: You buried them here? 
SALEM RAJAB: Yes we buried them here.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission, in an advance report of March 2, 2012, failed to mention the 12 but confirmed that “20 bodies lay outside on the ground with gunshot wounds.” The report adds that these corpses “were subsequently collected in body bags and reburied at Sidi Hamed in Gargarish.” [UH, p.70] This might be after being dug up from where Salem said they were first interred, already bagged. A mysterious grave of about 200 bodies was found in Gargarish, along the coast four miles from Tripoli, in early October. It’s unclear if these include the remains put there by rebels after this confusing game of musical graves.

Additional victims from the immediate surrounding areas are less clear, with no known images, and one text description. The Irish Times ran a piece on September 6, a week after Barker reported a total of 32 bodies, per Dr. Salim. The report described another body found that day, across the road “in a government-owned concrete factory.”

A severed hand was found first, followed by the body. The corpse, which had swollen in the heat and was covered in maggots, had been wrapped in a blanket and buried in a pile of sand and rubble. Its fingers and legs showed signs of mutilation. A doctor at the scene named Ahmed Suweidy said the corpse also appeared to have been partly burnt. [IT]

The stench alerted locals, and “police officer Salah Smohem said he believed other bodies may be buried within the factory grounds. “The smell suggests there must be others.....” And if it was government-owned, in late August 2011, that could mean only one thing, right?

With this tortured corpse that suffered fire damage, we’re able to open and close our examination of the un-burnt dead on similar cases with reminders that whoever killed these people were cruel and did like to use fire to desecrate the bodies and complicate investigation.

There would be more discoveries, however vague. For example, two days after the find described above, one further small mass grave was found in an unspecified area of “the Yarmouk neighborhood.” On September 8, Moises Saman for the New York Times photographed rebel exhuming the bodies of “four dead men alleged to have been killed by retreating Qaddafi forces as Tripoli fell to the rebels.” One body is invisible inside a blue-green plastic sheet, the rest still invisible in the ground.

The full number of dead in that area, what was done with their bodies, who they had really belonged to, and who had really killed them all remain unsettled. Always there were bodies missing but surely nearby, an uncertain but sizeable number of them. They filled the gap between the 150 or more prisoners and the 4-10-50 or so visible bodies. Dr. Salem, once again, gave us this break-down:

There are about 65 bodies in all either in the barn or yard," said Dr Salem, a local resident. "But we know for a fact that there were more than 150 prisoners in the barn when the firing started and that only about ten escaped [25-50 now]. What has been done with the other bodies?" 

There’s been talk of the remaining bodies dug up from a Gaddafi mass grave, before being re-buried elsewhere, but this has never been shown happening like it probably would if it had happened. Bodies we have reports or visual confirmation for are scattered, but adding up. Just sticking with these, we have:
About 45 in the shed, 32 un-burnt around and across the road, the severed-hand guy, the four dug up on the 6th, and the 22 at the Yarmouk mosque dump nearby.
45+32+5+22 = 104

And 104 is a death toll curiously close to the number of suspected rebel civilians and/or mutinous soldiers now accepted accepted as killed - 106. A.M. Haleem’s 180 dead, Amr-Dau Algala’s sixty, all the 100-150 reports, brothers and friends and sons of the inconsistent white-skinned likely fakers analyzed here - in the end was the real number simply the total of the mysterious dozens in the shed plus the racist torture-executions described above?

If so, what ever happened to the remainder of the 140-150 grenade-blasted "prisoners" they had an explanation for by 6 am on the 24th?

The Fall and Purge of Tawergha

September 18. 2011
last edits April 23, 2012

The City

Photo: David Enders,/MCT

Tawergha (Arabic: تاورغاء)‎ lies about 30-40 miles south of Misrata/Misurata, along the western coast of the Gulf of Sirte. Its population is unclear (10,000 is reported, 30,000 cited more commonly) and recently changed (to zero?). From the Wikipedia entry (which uses a different and common spelling - "Taworgha" - and the Arabic cited), it's a town that's occupied by an unstated number of people of unknown type. [1] A Euronews dispatch filming a clash there in May called it a "no man's land" between rebel and loyalist areas. [2] 

Wiki says its name means "the green island" in Berber." [1] But another source, the rebel outreach site Free Misurata says rather "the name of Taworgha was used by Misrataies to describe the black population in that area, because of the dark skin they have just like the real ancient Tuareg." [3] Indeed, it's inhabited mostly by black-skinned people originally from further south, apparently a remnant of the slave trade, a significant factor considering known anti-black sentiments in the rebel camp. As they explain:

The origin of this black population in North Africa gos back to the roman empire days , when the slavery trade was a good businesses by bringing the blacks from meddle Africa to export them from Misratah port ( was known as Kayvalai Bromentoriom )* to old Rome.

The sick who can not make it to the port and the long trip by ship was left behind at that spot, which is known for its swamps and jungles ( Libya was called the “Bread Basket of Europe”, because of the moderate climate and fertility of soil during the Roman time, and was one of the main exporters of grains to Rome ) [3]

Otherwise, the Wikipedia entry desribed Tawergha as "a city in Libya that followed the public administrative jurisdiction of the city of Misrata [...] during the rule of Muammar Gaddafi." It also noted that "control of Taworgha helped the Romans coordinate control of Libya." [1] By this, Tawergha is strategically important, and that's basically part of Misrata/Misurata anyway, fit to be done with as the people in charge there like.

Misrata - the nation's third largest city and a major regional port - had been under at least partial rebel control since February. But loyalist elements hung on in and around the city, putting it famously under a state of deadly prolonged siege. Some of this came from the black "Taureg" town that also served as a "green island" of government support.

The Preludes / Priming the Hate Machine
Now, there is a danger in examining this of placing too much emphasis on race. The tactical threat alone is cited, and does seem compelling. But racism emerges, time and again, in unsettlingly blatant ways. Free Misurata explains the back-story of how the black Tawerghans became a wicked race (again, [sic] implied throughout. It's perfectly readable):

... Gaddfi started to give them power by using them as personal body guards and brain wash them so they over estimated them selves ,their resources and abilities. [...] because Gaddafi just used them and never improved their live style, there was always some kind of jealousy when they compare them selves to prospers Misratah. [3]

Patronizing suspected jealousy is nothing new for lynch mob types. As Misratan rebels see it, this envy, the regime brainwashing, and whatever other factors led to a fall from grace by their neighbors. This was testified to repeated rocket attacks from their hamlet, occasional raids into the city with their black troops featured, sometimes re-taking portions of Misrata in bloody battles. This is to be expected as the government tried to restore order, but as it was remembered anyway, the Tawerghans' actions stepped far beyond the norm. Again, Free Misurata:

When Gaddafi asked them to attack Misratah……they did what evil is ashamed to do. [...] When Gaddafi forces entered Misratah from the eastern part with the help of residents of Taworgha , whom are of a black descent, they made what evil is ashamed to do, killing, loathing, rape, and destroying the homes by bulldozers.

After they entered the eastern part of Misratah they have forced the families to flee eastward but not to westward, because they want to use them as a human shield.

”Taworgha stabbed Misratah in the back”

It might seem understandable to many - you can't leave crimes like that unanswered. The systematic mass rape aspect in particular is frequently called on, supported by various evidence like alleged cell phone footgae seized from Gaddafi troops. But the only evidence shared with the outside world was the clearly coerced verification of two young captives taken, apparently, on one of their raids on Tawergha.

It was in late May this was broadcast by the BBC, from prisoners still wearing "the same filthy, bloodstained army fatigues they were captured in two weeks ago." [4] Amnesty international's team spoke with both of these kids and found their stories inconsistent and unreliable, so probably coached by their captors. [5] Going out of one's way to create a myth that will enrage the fighters in advance and encourage war crimes, if that's what happened here, is highly unethical to say the least.

The Misratans also suspected the invaders from the south had help from within their walls, and their revenge started close to home. A neighborhood was purged, as the Wall Street Journal reported

Before the siege, nearly four-fifths of residents of Misrata's Ghoushi neighborhood were Tawergha natives. Now they are gone or in hiding, fearing revenge attacks by Misratans, amid reports of bounties for their capture. [6]

In early-to-mid-May, they started making public vows against Tawergha itself. Sam Dagher reported for the Wall Street Journal, in a now-famous and rare article, how regional rebel Commander Ibrahim al-Halbous eerily said that "Tawergha no longer exists. There is only Misrata," while encouraging the residents who oppose them to all leave. With less authority but greater menace Dagher noted some rebel graffiti left out on the road to Tawergha - "brigade for purging slaves, black skin." [6]

A mid-May discussion between rebel fighters and tribal elders was filmed in the desert, posted later by VSMRK. Elderly black men in traditional garb listened with worry and muted disgust as young Arab thugs in baseball caps explained things [in Arabic of course, so I can't follow], with hand gestures of leveling and totality indicating that Halbus' prescription was for real. At the end, an ominous dust storm blew in and the video stopped. [7]

Would they help the people "liberate themselves," or purge the whole town? A bad sign was the NATO bombings of reported Gaddafi sites around Tawergha in the following weeks, likely phoned in by Misrata rebels. In late June one strike at least killed many civilians in the usual unconfirmed way. According to some reports, sixteen were killed, including a whole family, when a NATO bomb hit the public market. Video shared there shows at least one baby was among the dead. [8]

But still the question of the town's continued life was allowed to hover through July and beyond, as Misrata both absorbed and dished out more attacks.

The Battle
Wikipedia cites a start to the Battle of Tawergha on August 11, and end on the 13th, which seems accurate enough by what else I've seen. No mention is made of forced expulsions or other human rights abuses, but that's just a serious but widely-repeated omission. [9]  In a video dispatch for al Jazeera English, Andrew Simmons speaks with the commander on site, Ali Ahmed al Sheh. The townspeople were used by government forces as "human shields," says al Sheh. This at first limited their fighting ability, leaving them only able to use rifles against tanks until all the people were cleared. [10] 

However, a rebel video of August 11 goes against this. It shows Freedom Fighters using artillery and truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns and firing long-range rockets from the start. It also shows them in city center, and it seems pretty empty already. There are no cars but for one that's looted, and no sign of non-rebel life for several minutes.

Allahu Akbar is repeated approximately 14,000 times before a shocking segment of a Gaddafi loyalist is shown. Amidst a battle with holdouts on the outskirts, one is taken. He's apparently military, his head badly burnt, forehead charred and peeling, caked in blood, hair melted, ear lacerated. His comrades are probably dead, and he must be in great pain or great shock, but is standing and alert. He seems to have been a light-skinned black man to begin with, but he is now mostly charcoal black, and the rebels are shouting and laughing and jabbing him threteningly with their fingers, rather than getting him medical help. [11]

There is an August 13 report for BBC News by Orla Guerrin on the threats posed to Misrata, leaving them "numbed by loss and trauma." [12] The report made no mention of fight they were then waging, in the numbed state, to take Tawergha, and no mention of Tawergha at all. Yet the same day, she was there reporting on the battle just then wrapping up, in a video report that made no mention of the purge, or inhabitants, at all. Rebel fighter Khalid Bashir said he would sleep easier, with his children safer, after the battle won here and the threat somehow eliminated.  Former government positions shown, "abandoned at speed," she said. "They ran in a hurry," she said, after having "dug in here for a long stay." [13]

She mentioned continued fighting against "pockets" of Gaddafi fighters in the city, but made no mention of non-combatant inhabitants, as if the town were an empty stage to fight battles in. As Human Rights Investigations put it, Guerin's reporting, "disgracefully, failed to give the ethnic cleansing context." She made this omission "despite actually interviewing Ibrahim al-Halbous," the commander who had first prophesized what was then happening under this reporter's nose. [14]

The Purge Realized
Cover stories and denial often being evidence of a crime, it's interesting that a fighter named Fatateh told the Telegraph they didn't have to remove anyone, and also gave them an earlier date. "Some [homes] had been taken over by pro-Gaddafi militias after the civilians had fled," he told them, "and a two-day battle had ensued with rebel forces on the 10th and 11th of August." [15]

Andrew Simmons, reporting for Al Jazeera English on the 12th, gave us one of the only visual glimpses we've been allowed of even the edges of the promised purge. Simmons said the rebels "took this town by storm in what appears to be a highly co-ordinated operation with NATO," and were now generally relocating the people. One black man in traditional clothing, his left leg splattered with blood, is carried gently - through leering crowd - to somewhere else. It'ssaid he "engaged them in combat." I would, and he may have. [10]

The rabbles were on nice behavior on account of the camera; nothing morbid or terrible was shown, just the rather ambiguous liberation of another Libyan city. It comes across as slightly troubling, but not as horrific as it might have been. As Simmons described his view, at the tail end:

"They search from house to house, the flags of Gaddafi's Libya on every one. None of his men are left here, only this woman, an Egyptian, terrified. "You're safe," the fighters say. "No one will touch you." "I'm afraid, she tells them. Leave me in my house." She explains that she has nine children under 12, and they ran away during the attack.

The opposition says civilians are being evacuated, and handed over to the red cross." [10]

She's not allowed to stay at home, and leaves with them for Misrata, hoping to find her many children there (her story is presented as fishy). Mr. Simmons' follow-up tweet confirms it with a nice spin, and clarifying that Red Cross is really the Red Crescent, and giving a rare quantification of "hundreds"of victims:

Hundreds of civilians evacuated from Tawergha to Misrata away from Gaddafi thugs. Red crescent helping them now #libya via @simmjazeera [16]

But it was al Jazeera's camera that captured rebels trying, with visible worry, to prevent the filming of a locked freight container filled with some of the "freed" "human shields." While this might have been just a brief detention, it might have been for the mass-relocation and even puts an image in one's mind of people as freight to be shipped out, and perhaps that was exactly the idea. Misrata, where they were generally taken, is a major port, after all.

This makes it relevant to bring up a line of worry traced out in the post  refugees and human trafficking. At least 480 people, mostly black Africans, vanished on the two ships carrying them away from Libya and its problems. One at least was captained by a known human smuggler, perhaps of the type that had struck secret deals with the rebel TNC. And again, the rebels coming to this town are on record thinking of their prey as slaves, sub-human rapists, perhaps beasts who must be put on a leash or sold to someone far way who will do it. This is not a promising combination as far as human rights is concerned.

Whatever the exact scale and nature of it, this is how they do it: "leave your homes, don't come back 'til we say it's okay. You're liberated from being in our way." In this way, they quickly, within a week, battled their way to being in cities from which they could move on Tripoli and its million inhabitans, hoping to finally make the people of all Libya safe from being in the way of the NATO foot soldiers and the free market future. In addition to a probable war crime, or a cluster of them, the purge of Tawergha was an embarrassing tacit admission their "popular uprising" wasn't so popular everywhere, and some parts of Libya could only be "liberated for the people" by being emptied of their actual people.

No Camps, Just Expulpsion
Concentration camps in Tawergha were sort-of alleged, by an over-eager critic of the rebels called "Antiwar Soldier" (AS) in a Twitter discussion with a rebel sympathizer, or even fighter, named "Elwakshi" (E) - trying to justify the cleansing of Tawergha. [17]

AS: why was Zliten not "evacuated" and Tawergha was?
E: Tawergha ppl invaded Misurata and did many against human crimes but Zliten ppl did not.

AS: and women and children as well? How would you react is all Misrata was cleansed the same way?
E: we did the right action, i think if this happen in other place they will be murdered totally but we are wise ppl

AS: What will happen to them next?
E: We gave them water and food we supply them by petrol, we just want to protect our self

AS: so you put all civilian population indiscriminately in camps to protect yourself? This was done before in WW2
E: no we did not do, we ask him to look for other place to live, Libya is a wide land country and they can find elsewhere plac

AS: So it would be okay if Misratans were asked to look for another place in Libya?
E: If we do so it is ok

In this man's mind, killing off Tawergha was understandable, just not wise. Forcing a whole city to clear out is a nice compromise, they decided. He also said "We are in war now and it is urgent for us and for them as well." Yes, the urgency: NATO was getting impatient with their foot soldiers, and wanted Tripoli taken before six months was up - September 19. They needed to deliver the victories, start taking cities quickly and get ahold of Tripoli within about a month. So the abuses commenced to make each taking more brutal and more final. As NATO's assistance with Zliten, including bombing 33 children at Majer on August 9, they were willing to lead by example, and it was eagerly followed.

A Mass Grave
This story remains vague (but it has its own post here), but a mass grave was reoported is some minor detail by the UK Daily Mail.

Libyan rebels claim to have found a mass grave containing the bodies of 150 civilians [...] The spokesman said: 'We discovered a mass grave containing 150 bodies in Tawargha. These are the corpses of civilians kidnapped from Misrata by Gaddafi’s loyalists.' [...] He claimed in addition to the grave, troops had discovered video 'showing kidnappers cutting the throats of people'. [18]

Al Jazeera's Simmons had a late look at the site, and could confirm only one victim, beheaded and rotting." (see link above) "Slaughtered by forces loyal to Colonel Gadaffi," they were, as the Mail put it. Not an encouraging charge, especially considering we're dealing with a "discovery" made by rebels after they took the city. Be skeptical of their description of the victims as their own, kidnapped and beheaded by their enemy. I'd be willing to bet money nearly all of the victims were black-skinned, all locals, and slaughtered by the rebels in their unchecked, self-inflicted rage.

The Purge Goes Mobile
On the day of the battle's end, Imazighen Libya posted an old video of two injured black men captured in the battle for Qawalish, early July. One is a young black man, and another skinny, older black man with a gray beard. One was given as an African mercenary, the other a "mercenary from Tawergha." One of a type used even outside Misurata to crush the rebellion. [19] All Libyan rebel sympathizers, especially extremely racist ones like this (see here), understand why Tawergha and its people have to go.

Now in Tripoli, Tawerghans who fled there are disappearing or hiding as rebels, some right from Misrata, have caught up with them, perhaps remembering those bounties. The UK Telegraph reported:

Even fleeing is not, it seems, enough to save you. Tawargas have also been arrested at checkpoints, seized from hospitals and detained on the street. "They are really afraid. They have nowhere to go," said Ms [Diana Eltahawy, a researcher for Amnesty International who is currently in Libya].

On Aug 29, Amnesty says it saw a Tawarga patient at the Tripoli Central Hospital being taken by three men, one of them armed, for "questioning in Misurata". Amnesty was also told that at least two other Tawarga men had vanished after being taken for questioning from Tripoli hospitals. 

One 45-year-old flight dispatcher and his uncle were arrested by armed rebels while out shopping in the al-Firnaj area of Tripoli on 28 August. They were taken to the Military Council headquarters at Mitiga Airport just east of the capital. The men told Amnesty they were beaten with the butt of a rifle and received death threats. Both were held for several days in Mitiga and are still detained in Tripoli. 

Many Tawargas are now cowering in makeshift camps around Tripoli. But even there, they are not safe. In one camp, a group of armed men drove in and arrested about a dozen Tawargas. Their fate is still unknown. Another woman at the camp said her husband left the camp to run an errand in central Tripoli, about a week ago. She hasn't seen him since. [15]

A More Sentimental View, Dashed
Free Misrata's article cited above includes glowing reports of "freeing" seventeen families and bringing them back to Misrata. "[S]ome of them are known to be a pro Gaddafi , and now they say” we ware miss leaded and we ware wrong, thank you for saving our lives” While the writer found the purge fully necessary and mostly good, they noted with unexpected sensitivity that it wasn't all good:

Passing back Taworgh , it looked like a ghost city , no one is there , all the inhabitants fled fearing the revenge of Misratah people, but in reality no in Misratah thought of revenge…these where our people and will stay our people.

May be for the time being my advice to them is to return home and stay home, because when Gaddafi fall all standards will change and they may will be in danger where they stay now.

Later when all is settled and live is back to normal they can drive to Misratah again and seek jobs and work.

This was a black page in our history , and at the end of the day we are all on family, and welcome to any one wants to live under the flag of freedom and united free Libya.

The WSJ's Dagher noted in May that although "the rebel's political leadership says it will take steps to avoid reprisals if they capture the town," others more hands-on were "calling for the expulsion of Tawerghans from the area," or even "banning Tawergha natives from ever working, living or sending their children to schools in Misrata." [6] Dagher returned to the city in September to follow up, writing for the WSJ on effective NTC prime minister Mahmoud Jibril's approval of a more permanent purge. As Human Rights Investigations reports in Tawargha – the final solution, the earlier promise just didn't hold

The final chapter is now being written for Tawargha, as reported by Sam Dagher of the Wall Street Journal. Mahmoud Jibril, the NTC prime minister, rubber-stamped the wiping of the town off the map at the Misrata town hall: 

“Regarding Tawergha, my own viewpoint is that nobody has the right to interfere in this matter except the people of Misrata. This matter can’t be tackled through theories and textbook examples of national reconciliation like those in South Africa, Ireland and Eastern Europe,” he added as the crowd cheered with chants of “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is greatest.”

The WSJ goes on to report:
Now, rebels have been torching homes in the abandoned city 25 miles to the south. Since Thursday, The Wall Street Journal has witnessed the burning of more than a dozen homes in the city Col. Gadhafi once lavished with money and investment. On the gates of many vandalized homes in the country’s only coastal city dominated by dark-skinned people, light-skinned rebels scrawled the words “slaves” and “negroes." 

“We are setting it on fire to prevent anyone from living here again,” said one rebel fighter as flames engulfed several loyalist homes. [20]

The UK Telegraph reported:

This pro-Gaddafi settlement has been emptied of its people, vandalised and partly burned by rebel forces.
[...]
"We have met Tawargas in detention, taken from their homes simply for being Tawargas," said Diana Eltahawy, a researcher for Amnesty International who is currently in Libya. "They have told us that they have been forced to kneel and beaten with sticks." [15]

As for the rest? The Telegraph was told this, in no unclear terms:

"We gave them thirty days to leave," said Abdul el-Mutalib Fatateth, the officer in charge of the rebel garrison in Tawarga, as his soldiers played table-football outside one of the empty apartment blocks. "We said if they didn't go, they would be conquered and imprisoned. Every single one of them has left, and we will never allow them to come back." [15]

And David Enders confirms for McClatchy papers:

In Tawergha, the rebel commander said his men had orders not to allow any of the residents back in. He also said that unexploded ordnance remained in the area, though none was readily apparent.

Most homes and buildings in the area appeared to have been damaged in the fighting, and a half-dozen appeared to have been ransacked. The main road into the village was blocked with earthen berms. Signs marking the way to the village appeared to have been destroyed.

On the only sign remaining "Tawergha" had been painted over with the words "New Misrata."

On one wall in Tawergha, graffiti referred to the town's residents as "abeed," a slur for blacks. [21]

Ah well, they had some nicer sentiments at one time, and it's the thought of only a semi-final solution that matters. They really tried their best. Now only the last bounties and remaining scattered heads remain before their agreed solution is finalized.  Incidentally, at least one black man so far, a patient at Abu Salim trauma hospital in Tripoli, had his actual head removed.

World leaders: How's that campaign to stop Gaddafi's "genocide" against "the Libyan people" coming along?

Postscript, April 23, NYT, October 29 2011 (thanks, Hurriya):

Even at Janzur, they are not safe. Libyans harass them constantly, taking cellphones, money, even light bulbs. They are press-ganged into working as day laborers, for long hours and for little or no money, neglected by the rebel soldiers supposedly there to protect them. More than 10 women — some married, pregnant even — said they were gang raped by armed Arab men the night the rebels entered Tripoli. The men of the camp could not protect them.

Sources:
[1] Wikipedia. Taworgha. Last edited August 22, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taworgha
[2] Euronews. "Libya: fighting in Tawarga." May 19, 2011. http://www.euronews.net/2011/05/19/libya-fighting-scenes-in-tawarga/
[3] Free Misurata. English articles. Taworgha has become a ghost city, and FF free 70 families at Alhish 160km to the east. August 18, 2011. http://www.freemisurata.com/EngArt/archives/648
[4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13502715
[5] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html
[6] Dagher, Sam. "Libya City Torn by Tribal Feud" online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304887904576395143328336026.html
Re-posting: http://www.mail-archive.com/marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/msg04658.html
[7] Posted by VSMRK, August 17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrQwZYa5dcY
[8] http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/06/nato-killed-16-civilians-28062011.html
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taworgha
[10] Al Jazeera English, Andrew Simmons reporting, August 12. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/08/20118131635565144.html
[11] Posted by VSMRK, Sept.12.  http://www.youtube.com/user/VSMRK#p/search/0/Bk_wBjDH15k
[12] Guerin, Orla. "Libya's rebel-held Misrata numbed by loss and trauma." August 13, 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9562064.stm
[13] BBC News video report, August 13.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14517267
[14] HRI Mark. Tawergha no longer exists, only Misrata. Human rights investigations. August 13, 2011. http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/08/13/tawergha-no-longer-exists-only-misrata/
[15] Gilligan, Andrew. "Gaddafi's ghost town after the loyalists retreat." The Telegraph. September 11, 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8754375/Gaddafis-ghost-town-after-the-loyalists-retreat.html
[16] http://inagist.com/ChangeInLibya/102169313498238976/Hundreds_of_civilians_evacuated_from_Tawergha_to_Misrata_away_from_Gaddafi_thugs
[17] http://yfrog.com/z/h3qamp
[18] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027465/Libyan-rebels-mass-grave-150-civilians-slaughtered-Gadaffi-forces.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
[19]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tEIv4LW-fw
[20] HRI Mark. "Tawargha-the Final Solution." Human Rights Investigations. September 14, 2011. http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/09/14/tawargha-the-final-solution/
[21] Enders, David. Empty village raises concerns about fate of black Libyans. McClatchy. September 13. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/13/123999/empty-village-raises-concerns.html