Will families of Libyan airstrike victims ever get justice?
Five years on, NATO has yet to be forthcoming about how and how many civilians died during its battle to overthrow former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
On June 19, 2011, a NATO airstrike killed five members of the al-Gherari family as they slept in their adjacent homes in Tripoli. Sixteen people were sleeping at the two houses when, at around 1:15 a.m., at least one missile struck the compound. It killed Karima al-Gherari, her husband Abdullah Nimr, her brother Faraj al Gherari, and Karima’s 2-year-old and 7-month-old children.
Al-Monitor obtained police reports listing the causes of death as “burns sustained from shrapnel,” “falling debris due to airstrike,” and “fracture and burns.”
Five years after the disaster, Al-Monitor tracked down Mohamed al-Gherari, one of the survivors of that night, and visited the compound where the attack took place. His sister’s house, the center of the strike, was destroyed.
“I was sleeping in my room at my family’s ground-floor home” when the missile hit his sister’s house, he said with the pain still visible on his face while he guided Al-Monitor through the rubble of what used to be his home.
