Libya’s political chaos has left little room for the reconciliation that many residents see as necessary for peace. Few places feel that more than Tarhuna, where a murderous band of brothers reigned for years.
TARHUNA, Libya — It is hard to find a starker illustration of the failures of Libya’s political leaders than Tarhuna, a town set between the Mediterranean coast and the desert where seven brothers from the Kani family and their militiamen detained, tortured and killed hundreds of residents in a five-year reign of terror.
Two years after their grip was broken, Tarhuna is still searching for bodies. The rolling groves that produce its famous olive oil now hide mass graves. Some families are missing half a dozen members or more. Others say they learned their relatives’ fate from ex-prisoners or other witnesses: an uncle thrown to the Kani brothers’ pet lions; a cousin buried alive.
Clothing still litters the ground outside a sunbaked makeshift prison where the brothers’ militia kept prisoners in oven-like cabinets that just fit a man crouching.
We will move on when we have justice and they pay for their crimes,” said Kalthoum el-Hebshi, the retired head of a nursing school in Tarhuna. “Until then, there won’t be reconciliation,” she added. “When you say to me, ‘make peace,’ how can I make peace with someone with blood on his hands? How can I shake his hand?”
After more than a year of brittle stability, Libya is again tipping toward the chaos that shattered it after rebels overthrew Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, the dictator of more than 40 years, in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. The upheaval left this North African country split in half, east and west, carved up by two rival governments and dozens of rival militias that operate above the law.
Last year, a period of relative peace offered a snatch of hope. Elections scheduled for December were supposed to produce a government that could reunify Libya’s long-divided institutions, shepherd in a Constitution, disarm the militias and expel foreign fighters. But disagreements over candidate eligibility scuttled the vote, pitching a country on Europe’s doorstep into a new phase of uncertainty.
The Kanis’ murderous streak began amid the 2011 revolt, when they exploited the anarchy to settle scores against rivals and entrench themselves in Tarhuna, a town of about 70,000 people. They built their power and wealth through smuggling and extortion, residents said.
By 2016, they had allied with the internationally backed government in Tripoli, which paid them to run security. Three years later, a new civil war broke out as Khalifa Hifter, eastern Libya’s leader