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Human rights group: 130 mutinous Libyan soldiers slain

Arab World Materials 23 February 2011 22:30 (UTC +04:00)
At least 640 people have been killed in Libya in the ongoing uprising against Moamer Gaddafi's regime, including 130 soldiers shot dead for refusing to fire on protesters, a leading human rights group reported Wednesday.
Human rights group: 130 mutinous Libyan soldiers slain

At least 640 people have been killed in Libya in the ongoing uprising against Moamer Gaddafi's regime, including 130 soldiers shot dead for refusing to fire on protesters, a leading human rights group reported Wednesday.

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said that information gleaned from several sources, including hospital, military and human rights sources, showed at least 275 people had been killed in the capital Tripoli and 230 in the second city of Benghazi.

"We're dealing with crimes against humanity," Souhayr Belhassen, president of the federation told the German Press Agency dpa. "This has to be referred to the International Court of Justice."

The federation, which regroups 164 human rights leagues worldwide, said the death toll in Tripoli could be higher than 275, with civilian sources reporting that a school in Sbiaa, 50 kilometres south of the city, which had been transformed into a makeshift morgue, contained hundreds of dead.

In Benghazi, the 230 reported dead included a group of mutinous soldiers slain in the nearby city of al-Bayda, where the burnt bodies of 48 soldiers were found at a military barracks, the federation said, quoting unnamed humanitarian and academic sources.

A French doctor who had been working in Benghazi Medical Centre before being evacuated Monday told French daily Le Point on Wednesday that he had witnessed scenes of "carnage."

"The first day: 75 dead, the second 200, then over 500. By the third day I had no morphine or drugs left. First the authorities fired on people's legs and abdomens. Then the thorax and the head. Then we saw mortar injuries and even anti-aircraft missiles, straight into the crowd," Gerard Buffet, 60, was quoted as saying.

Two hospitals of 1,500 beds in Benghazi had been filled with the dead and injured, he said.

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