The Libya’s UN-backed unity government on Thursday launched its first DNA analysis laboratory to help identify bodies recovered from mass graves.
Head, General Authority for the Care of the Families of Martyrs and Missing Persons (GACFMMP), Mahmoud Al-Herri, said that the laboratory would be ran by GACFMMP and to be sponsored by oil company Repsol and the state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC).
Al-Herri said the laboratory would be used on all mass graves in Libya. “The laboratory will contribute to ending the suffering of thousands of families of martyrs and missing people all over Libya,” Khaled Bokhotwa, the NOC’s officer of Health, Safety, Environment, Security and Sustainable Development, said.
Bokhotwa said the laboratory would ensure “the links between the martyrs and missing persons with their families” through the advanced technology of DNA tracing.
“The laboratory will help identify their families in these difficult times, especially with many bodies extracted from mass graves that have not been identified so far,” Bokhotwa said during the opening ceremony.
The Libyan Ministry for Martyrs and Missing Persons announced in June 2013 that there had been 2,516 people missing since the 2011 uprising, which toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi. The ministry announced that 110 mass graves have been reported in the country so far, and more than 5,000 people were killed during the 2011 uprising.
