Since the recent withdrawal of Muammar el-Qaddafi's troops from Ajdabiya, Libya, families of missing Libyan men have started to search for their lost loved ones. The Human Rights Watch reports that there have been more than 70 disappearances, and the The Red Crescent, the Muslim counterpart of the Red Cross, maintains that there are more than 255 disappearance cases, the majority of which occurred during the peak of the fighting.
Relatives of the alleged abductees believe that Qaddafi's forces are to blame; many of the missing men were last seen in custody of Qaddafi's troops, and in about a dozen cases, troops answered the men's cellphones and indicated that the men had been abducted. Based on past actions of Qaddafi loyalists, families fear their loved ones are being severely abused, or worse, dead.
Among the missing are four doctors, one of which is an Libyan-American neurosurgeon, a student of economics, a salesman, and many others.
The original NYT article incorporates several examples of missing individuals, but one of the most gripping was the story of Dr. Ali al-Barg, who served as the director of an emergency ward. When Dr. Barg heard the news that troops had reached Benghazi, Libya, he quickly traveled in an ambulance with a nurse and a driver to search for and aid any injured or dead. However, the next day, a witness reported that the ambulance was shot up, the nurse was dead, and Dr. Barg was arrested, beaten, and bound. Twelve others were bound with him. As the government troops began to take them away, one man shouted his name, hoping that someone would search for him.
-Gracie Hollister
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