[ 2011-10-23 ]

Kadhafi's last-stand hometown littered with bodies
SIRTE, Libya (AFP) - Omar Befaila is sweeping up
the ruins of what used to be his home and his shop
in Sirte, the hometown of Moamer Kadhafi where the
former dictator holed up until his capture and
death last week.

The city that stretches away from the shores of
the Mediterranean and into the hot desert sands of
Libya has been reduced to rubble, a ghost town
filled with the stench of death and where bodies
litter the streets.

Eight months after the launch of a popular
uprising to unseat him and after weeks of fierce
combat backed by daily NATO air strikes at Sirte,
fighters are streaming out of the city in convoys
of pickup trucks, tanks and a wild assortment of
other vehicles.

"It's over. We are going home. Kadhafi is dead,"
shouts a beaming National Transitional Council
fighter.

In June 1942 Kadhafi was born in the vicinity of
this ancient fishing and commercial port and more
than 69 years later, on Thursday, he was captured
and killed in Sirte.

Outside the city centre, relief workers prepare to
bury more than 175 bodies covered with white
plastic sheets -- the last Kadhafi soldiers killed
in a NATO air strike as they fled in a convoy.

The remains of 25 charred bodies lie nearby.

Kadhafi was captured as he tried to flee Sirte but
died in circumstances that are still unclear. New
regime officials say he was killed in a exchange
of fire while others say he was summarily
executed.

Al-Mahari hospital close to Sirte's city centre is
riddled with bullets and shells.

An overpowering odour rises from Al-Mahari
hospital, close to Sirte's city centre, where more
than 60 corpses are rotting on the lawn.

Many of the victims have been killed
execution-style, a bullet to the head. Some have
been bound hand and foot.

"The hospital was used as a prison by Kadhafi's
men. We found it the day Kadhafi died. Our men
were held prisoner here," said Sharif Ahmad
Sharif, an NTC fighter.

"Kadhafi's men executed the prisoners before
leaving," he said. Other fighters agreed, adding
that the city is littered with corpses.

"We have evacuated so many. I cannot keep count.
Hundreds, thousands...," said Sadduk al-Banani,
who works for the Libyan non-governmental
organisation Tabiya.

Kadhafi had grandiose plans for Sirte, and even
considered once making it the capital of Libya,
building there a luxurious conference centre where
only last year he hosted an Arab summit.

All that now is devastated.

The destruction is more vivid around the city
centre where bullet casings cover streets and
sidewalks.

Not one building is intact. Windows are shattered.
Shops are shuttered and the city's 120,000
residents are nowhere to be seen.

The district known as Number Two neighbourhood,
where Kadhafi loyalists made their final stand
carries the signs of fierce street fighting.

Buildings are reduced to rubble, roofs have caved
in, electricity pylons have been felled, cutting
off roads.

Source - AFP

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