TRIPOLI — A mass grave site with up to 25 bodies has been found in Tawergha, west of Misrata. Misrata prosecutors were able to direct police to the location in the Subkha area of Tawergha, after questioning an officer from the Gaddafi regime. Hamed Malki, the media manager at the Ministry of Martyrs and Missing People told the Libya Herald that there were three graves and that six bodies has so far been exhumed by the ministry's specialist researchers. Their initial finding showed that the corpses they were unearthing were handcuffed and wore either military or civilian clothing. It is not yet known, said Malki, if the dead were rebels, Gaddafi's troops or civilians. However the team believes that one mass grave contains four members of the same family. The exhumation has required official permission from the attorney general. Once all the remains have been recovered, the ministry's specialists will start work matching the DNA of the corpses with the 12,000 samples they have collected from living relatives of people who went missing during the revolution. Where matches are made,the attorney general will authorize the handover of the bodies to their families. The ministry runs a cemetery at Beer Usta Milad, east of Tripoli, which is given over to the burial of victims of the conflict. — Libya Herald
