The Washington Report prepared a report about the huge losses in life that NATO caused in Libya in 2011. The report said that in 2011 the Arab Spring turned into a civil war in Libya.
It confirmed that the world witnessed massive protests of citizens demanding freedom in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but foreign military intervention played a critical and divisive role in Libya’s bloody spring.
The report mentioned some Libyans who lost relatives due to the NATO attack on Libya.
Mustafa al-Morabit, his wife Ibtisam, and their two kids Mohamed, 5, and Mo’taz, 3, were asleep in their home in Zlitin, about 170 kilometres (km) east of Tripoli, Libya, on the night of August 4th, 2011, when a NATO rocket hit, killing Ibtisam and their two children. Mustafa, who survived, is still in the dark about who killed his family and why.
On the evening of June 19th, a NATO missile struck Mohamed al-family Gharari’s home in the Souq al-Juma’a neighbourhood East of Tripoli. It claimed the lives of his 48-year-old brother Faraj, 38-year-old sister Karima, 44-year-old spouse Abdallah Shihab, and their two children, Jomana and Khaled. Eight more people were hurt.
NATO only acknowledged that it might have killed civilians on this one occasion. Later that day, the alliance released a statement in which it expressed “regret for the loss of innocent human life” and suggested that the strike may have been the result of “a weapons system failure.”
Despite flying almost 26,000 sorties over Libya, NATO never recognised any further civilian deaths as the bombardment continued and civilian casualties grew.
Khaled el-Hamedi filed a petition with a Belgian court in 2012 after the NATO bombing of his family’s Surman residence in June 2011 resulted in the death of every member of his family.
Two years later, his attorney, Jan Fermon, informed me that the matter had been dismissed due to NATO’s diplomatic immunity. As a last resort to obtain some form of acknowledgement and possibly an apology from the alliance, Fermon claimed in Paris, France in October 2021 that he is getting ready to submit a case before the European Court of Human Rights. The chances of receiving either though, are not great.
A Belgian attorney was chosen in 2012 by survivor Mohamed al-Gharari to hold NATO accountable. He sent the lawyer several thousand dollars, but nothing happened, and he never heard from the lawyer again.
“Al-Gharari resorted to me in desperation and asked if I could contact the lawyer Georges Henri Beauthier. I made several vain attempts.”
“The solely Libyan component of the tragedy is heartbreaking for the families of the NATO victims. Since October 2011, every new Libyan government that has taken office has done nothing to assist the people. They do not appear to believe that the Libyan citizens slain by NATO should receive any sort of acknowledgement.”