Father kills teenage daughters raped by Gaddafi soldiers

A father slit the throats of his three teenage daughters in an "honour killing" after they were raped by Gaddafi loyalists during the siege of the port city of Misrata.

The father is said to have carried out the "honour killings" because of the humiliation and shame the rape of the sisters - aged 15, 17 and 18 - in Tomina, on the outskirts of Misrata. The victims were not named.

Allegations of the shocking executions are contained in a report by the respected Physicians for Human Rights group into war crimes and atrocities in the embattled city, which faced two months of being cut off from the rest of Libya.

The report, which refers to rape, mass arrests, murders and beatings, also contains allegations that civilians and children were used as human shields by Gaddafi's forces after Nato warplanes began to attack.

PHR was able to take a team of interviewers into Misrata from June 5 to 12, just after Libyan rebel forces expelled Gaddafi's loyalists, and their findings mirror those of other organisations.

Interviewing dozens of survivors of the siege, the Boston-based group found widespread evidence of crimes against humanity, including summary killings, hostage-taking and use of mosques, schools and marketplaces as weapons depots.

"Four eyewitnesses reported that Gaddafi troops forcibly detained 107 civilians and used them as human shields to guard military munitions from Nato attacks south of Misrata," said the report.

"One father said soldiers forced his two young children to sit on a military tank and threatened the family, 'You'll stay here, and if Nato attacks us, you'll die, too'."

PHR obtained copies of military orders as evidence that Gaddafi ordered his troops to starve civilians in Misrata, while pillaging food caches and barring locals from receiving humanitarian aid.