{"id":63984,"date":"2026-02-07T20:39:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/thousands-attend-funeral-of-slain-son-of-muammar-gaddafi"},"modified":"2026-02-07T21:27:54","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:27:54","slug":"thousands-attend-funeral-of-slain-son-of-muammar-gaddafi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/thousands-attend-funeral-of-slain-son-of-muammar-gaddafi","title":{"rendered":"Thousands attend funeral of slain son of Muammar Gaddafi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. <\/strong> <\/span>Thousands of people descended on the small town of Bani Walid on Friday to attend the funeral of a son of former Libyan dictator, the late Muamar Gaddafi.<\/b><\/p>\n

Saif al-Islam, once seen by some as his father\u2019s heir apparent, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at his home in the north-western city of Zintan on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Bani Walid – a stronghold of the Warfalla tribe – together with Gaddafi\u2019s hometown, Sirte, were the two final strongholds loyal to the Libyan ruler during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.<\/p>\n

Each year, it celebrates the anniversary of the 1969 coup that brought Muammar to power. He ruled Libya with an iron fist until being ousted and killed during the rebellion.<\/p>\n

The large turnout on Friday, including people from other parts of the country, at the tightly secured event underscored the political divisions that have split Libya since then.<\/p>\n

Saif al-Islam\u2019s burial brought together thousands of Gaddafi loyalists.<\/p>\n

“We are here to accompany our beloved one, the son of our leader in whom we placed our hope and our future,” said Waad Ibrahim, a woman from Sirte which is nearly 300 kilometres away.<\/p>\n

She blamed the country’s eastern and western rival powers for his killing.<\/p>\n

“They met in France to agree that the only obstacle standing in their way was Saif al-Islam,” she said referring to a recent US-brokered meeting in Paris between officials from both sides.<\/p>\n

Officials from Libya\u2019s rival governments, the Tripoli-based internationally recognised Government of National Unity, and the Government of National Stability in the east, did not attend the funeral.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah’s UN-backed administration condemned the killing of Saif al-Islam saying “assassinations never provided stability… but rather deepen division”.<\/p>\n

“The Libya we are working towards is a state of law and institutions, where disputes are managed through dialogue and by resorting to the will of the people,” Dbeibah said.<\/p>\n

Tripoli resident, Sabri Gachout, said Saif al-Islam’s killing meant that “elections can now be organised without him in the electoral process”.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted to get him out of the electoral race so that they could win. They succeeded in excluding him from the political scene by assassinating him. He had a good chance and was a leader for us,” he said<\/p>\n

In 2021, Saif al-Islam announced he would run for president.<\/p>\n

But the elections committee disqualified him and the polls aiming to unify the country under a UN agreement were indefinitely postponed due to disputes over the constitutional framework and candidate eligibility.<\/p>\n

Find more news and analyses on Mauritius<\/span> on the Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. Thousands of people descended on the small town of Bani Walid on Friday to attend the funeral of a son of former Libyan dictator, the late Muamar Gaddafi. Saif al-Islam, once seen by some as his father\u2019s heir apparent, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at his home in the north-western city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":63983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[6106,2974,241,7285,7286],"class_list":["post-63984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-funerals","tag-libya","tag-mauritius","tag-muammar-gaddafi","tag-saif-al-islam-gaddafi"],"yoast_head":"\nThousands attend funeral of slain son of Muammar Gaddafi - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag"> Africa-Press - Mauritius. 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