Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday made an appeal before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate allegations of the use of landmines in 2019 by Russian paramilitaries fighting in Libya, reported Daily Sabah.
The rights group claims that demining groups in Libya with links to Russia’s Wagner Group used “banned booby traps” during an offensive launched by east-based Libyan forces on Tripoli.
“The Wagner Group added to the deadly legacy of mines and booby traps scattered across Tripoli’s suburbs that has made it dangerous for people to return to their homes,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW.
Fakih said a credible and transparent international inquiry is required to look into the use of land mines around Tripoli and ensure justice for all those who were unlawfully killed.
According to the HRW, a demining group with the Tripoli-based Defense Ministry has reported that at least 130 people were killed and 196 were injured, mostly civilians, due to mines and other explosive ordnance between May 2020 and March 2022 in Tripoli’s southern suburbs. A total of 78 casualties – 24 percent of the total recorded by the Defense Ministry’s Libyan Mine Action Center (LibMAC) – were deminers.
HRW cited a tablet left on a Libyan battlefield by a Wagner mercenary that contained maps of the locations of 35 unmarked anti-personnel mines. Earlier this week, a UN panel of experts said it considers the device to be authentic.
The Wagner Group, which is a private Russian military security contractor with links to Russia’s government, backed Khalifa Hiftar’s forces in their attack on Tripoli. At least three Libyan deminers before the mines’ locations were identified.
Libya has been engulfed in chaos after a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has been split between rival administrations for years, each backed by different military forces and foreign powers.
