On Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) revealed that Turkey had transferred about 350 Syrian minors to Libya to fight alongside the extremist militias of the Government of National Accord (GNA) against the Libyan National Army (LNA).
In statements to Sky News Arabia, SOHR’s head Rami Abdel Rahman, said that at least 34 of those minors were killed during battles in Libya. He added that the bodies of the killed minors, in addition to 500 bodies of other Syrian fighters, were returned to Syria via Turkey.
Abdel Rahman added that the Turkey is involved in transferring about 19,000 Syrian mercenaries to Libya, in addition to about 10,000 extremists of other nationalities.
On Thursday, Abdel Rahman informed that a new batch of hundreds of mercenaries are currently in training camps in Turkey, waiting for the green light to be transferred to Libya in case of a collapse of the ceasefire there.
He pointed out that Turkish recruitment of mercenaries has slowed recently after international reports covered the matter. However, the mercenaries in the Turkish camps, numbering about 500, know that they are going to fight in Libya if the ceasefire collapses.
A report issued by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) revealed that more than 5,000 Syrian mercenaries were sent by Turkey to Tripoli during the period between April and June 2020. Abdel Rahman commented on this report by saying: “The report is identical to the reports of the Observatory, which talked in April about the presence of about 10,000 mercenaries with Syrian nationality in Libya, and in June the number had reached 15,000. Now we are talking about 18,000 mercenaries who arrived in Libya until last week, 6,150 of them returned to Syria.”
Abdel Rahman confirmed that the last batch of mercenaries arrived in Libya about 4 weeks ago, and included 800 fighters with Syrian nationality, despite talks of a ceasefire in Libya.