Col. Moammar Gadhafi and his troops may have committed war crimes against civilian residents of Misrata, one of the main rebel strongholds in Libya, said Amnesty International on Friday.
For the report titled "Misratah -- Under Siege and Under Fire," Amnesty documented attacks on civilians in the city and collected eyewitness accounts from residents. Many of them described what the report calls "reckless and indiscriminate attacks" in residential neighbourhoods.
Misrata is the rebels' main base in western Libya, a region still largely under Gadhafi's control. Most of the rebels' strength lies in the east of the country.
The report also outlines the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Misrata, saying most residents of the city are without electricity, phone service, Internet or running water. Only a few places that provide essential services, such as hospitals, have their own generators.
Food and water supplies are dwindling as well, with fresh produce and baby milk in short supply after Gadhafi forces destroyed supplies and killed livestock in areas they entered.
But in addition to the everyday hardships suffered by residents, they have also had to deal with ongoing violence, the report states.
Forces loyal to Gadhafi, it states, "have continued to launch relentless and often indiscriminate lethal attacks into the city's residential neighbourhoods for the past two months, killing and injuring scores of residents in their homes or as they were going about their daily chores in the city."
In many of the attacks, Amnesty said, residents were killed or injured by 122mm Grad rockets and mortars, and by artillery shells.
"Grad rockets are indiscriminate weapons. Pro-Gadhafi forces have fired these rockets from up to tens of kilometres away, killing and injuring civilians and damaging civilian homes and other buildings.
"Even at much closer range, these rockets cannot be directed at a particular target."
The report says such weapons are meant to be used against massed infantry or armoured military machinery, and are not precise enough to be used in the vicinity of civilian targets.
Following are a number of specific incidents included in the report:
- March 23: Ibrahim Ahmad al-Dernawi, a 33-year-old father of three boys, was killed by sniper fire -- one of many cases of deadly sniper attacks observed by Amnesty.
- April 14: 12 residents killed and many more injured when several salvos of rockets hit A residential neighbourhood between 7 and 8 a.m. Many residents were in line at a bakery, waiting for bread.
- April 14, 15, 15: Sustained attacks by Grad rockets, fired individually as well as in salvos of 40, were "literally raining down" in the residential neighbourhood.
- April 15: Amnesty International finds evidence of the use of cluster submunitions by Gadhafi troops -- a weapon banned by more than 100 countries.
- April 29: Sea mines are discovered around the port of Misrata, likely intended to block the rebels' point of contact with the outside world.
- May 4: Government forces shell the Misrata port area as an aid vessel docked to evacuate hundreds of stranded migrant workers. Two toddlers and their aunt and uncle, all from Niger, were killed.
Earlier this week a prosecutor at the United Nations' International Criminal Court said he intended to seek the arrest of three Libyans on charges of alleged war crimes
On Friday, France ordered 14 Libyan embassy employees to leave the country within 48 hours. The staffers had previously worked for Libya's embassy in Paris, which was shut down about a month ago.
Amnesty International collected its research for the report during a fact-finding mission in between April 14 and 20.
