Life under the Daesh terrorism group is a "nightmare" for Libyans, from which many have already fled, Ahmed Benchemsi, Advocacy and Communications Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch, told Radio Sputnik.
"For those who stay behind, the situation is nothing short of a nightmare," Benchemsi said.
"We interviewed 45 people who described scenes of horror, including beheadings, corpses in orange jumpsuits hanging from scaffolding, what were described as crucifixions, ISIS (Daesh) patrols in schools quizzing kids about Sharia law, snatching men out of their bed in the middle of the night, flogging and punishing people for merely smoking or wearing the wrong clothes, so it is a catastrophic situation."
"There is way less information going out of Libya than there is going out of other strongholds of ISIS (Daesh) in Iraq and Syria, and that is probably because Libya is in such a state of chaos that journalists and human rights organizations can hardly set foot there."
"We sent our researchers to Misrata, which is 240 km away from Sirte, we have been able to interview a lot of people, and this enabled us to get information out."
"We only hope this information will shed the spotlight on the dramatic and catastrophic situation going on now in Sirte and there will be more international interest and concern over the situation in Libya."
