163 bodies found in Libya mass grave

Benghazi, Mar 4: A Libyan committee on missing persons today said that it had recovered the bodies of 163 people who were killed in the 2011 conflict that toppled the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

"The discovery of 163 bodies out of 400 missing from the regions of eastern Libya is an incredible achievement," Maher Warfalli of the committee of missing persons told AFP, without specifying when the grave was found.

Committee chairman Omar Abdelkhalek Obeidi, who is also a forensics expert, said the bodies had been extracted from a "mass grave" in the desert town of Bin Jawad, east of Sirte, where Kadhafi was captured and killed on October 20.

"The bodies belong to rebels who lost their lives between February and March 2011 in Brega, Ras Lanuf, Bin Jawad and even on the outskirts of Sirte," he said.

He added that some of the people showed signs of having been executed while others had died in combat pitting lightly armed rebels against the superior military power of forces loyal to Gaddafi. The exhumation was carried out with the assistance of the United Nations and in cooperation with the ministry of martyrs, wounded and missing people, Warfalli said.

AFP