BBC News with Gaenor Howells
Libyan rebel leaders say they fear for the safety of up to 50,000 people taken prisoner by Colonel Gaddafi's forces.
They say that if the captives aren't already dead, they might be trapped in hidden underground bunkers.
From Benghazi, Jon Leyne reports.
The opposition say they have kept
accurate
records of the many opposition supporters
snatch
ed by Colonel Gaddafi's forces during months of demonstrations and fighting across the country. Nearly 50,000 are still missing. The fear is that their bodies may be unearthed in mass graves close to prisons, such as the
notorious
Abu Salim in Tripoli; or almost as bad, the prisoners could be trapped in a series of secret prison bunkers hidden under military bases, under farms or almost anywhere. An urgent search is being conducted, and the opposition have appealed to former security officials to
come forward with
any information that could help.
The rebel authorities in Libya say they are trying to identify about 50 charred bodies found in a burned-out warehouse at a military base outside the capital Tripoli. The remains were discovered at a site used by a brigade commanded by one of Colonel Gaddafi's sons. The BBC's Orla Guerin has been there.
Inside the warehouse, under a still
smolder
ing roof, we saw the charred remains of dozens of bodies. Some were little more than skeletons. They were killed on Tuesday, in the dying days of the regime. There were more bodies on the ground outside. A rope [was] still attached to one man's feet. An old man, Fathallah Abdullah, wept in the doorway. He told us he