Speaking “Al-Bilad” program on 218News, the coordinator of the gathering of the families of the kidnapped persons in Benghazi, Hussein Al-Fitouri, explained that the file of the missing in Benghazi needs a serious stance by all officials.
He added: “In Benghazi, there are more than (1000) missing from the year 2011 to this moment. According to the Red Crescent, there are (176) missing persons between the years 2014 and 2015, saying that their families are registered in the gathering.
He added that the kidnappings were carried out through arrests outside or from homes, saying that up to this point, there is no information on their whereabouts.
Al-Fitouri confirmed that they demanded several times to conduct a DNA analysis of the bodies that were removed from the mass graves in the areas of Qawarsha and Qanfouda and in all places of clashes in the city of Benghazi, and they went to the concerned authorities and submitted many notes and complaints, but no one paid any attention to them.
He continued: “In January 2017, we established a gathering for the families of the missing to move in an organized collective manner, and in July a delegation from the city of Benghazi went to the town of Al-Qubba to meet the HoR Speaker, Aqila Saleh. I was part of this delegation and talked about the missing in Benghazi. However, in September of the same year, we met Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and he promised to pay attention to this humanitarian file, and unfortunately we did not see anything real.”
He pointed out that, in February 2018, they met the Mayor of Benghazi, Abd al-Rahman al-Abbar, and informed him that the United Nations envoy Ghassan Salame would be present next week. He requested a memorandum to fully explain the situation be prepared, and after that, Abd al-Rahman al-Abbar sent a letter to the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health and the Head of the Red Crescent on the basis of our request to conduct a DNA analysis of the corpses of mass graves. The letter was transferred to the Office of Judicial Expertise and the work stopped at this point.
He adds: “On February 20, 2018, the gathering filed a complaint with the Office of the Public Defender in Benghazi, and through them, the letter was directed to the Military Prosecutor’s Office and the issue stopped. In March 2018, there was a conference that was held in Tunis under the auspices of the United Nations to talk about the missing in Libya, and unfortunately we reached the same previous results.”
