Public opinion in Libya was shaken on Monday by a shocking crime involving a young girl, just 3 years old, who was killed by her father and stepmother in the city of Ajdabiya, eastern Libya. The couple brutally whipped her and tortured her with boiling water until she died.
According to details revealed by the investigation unit of the Ajdabiya Criminal Investigation Department, the child, "Rabha Khaled Abdul Hamid," suffered from diarrhea, which disturbed her father. He punished her with a whip made of rope, took her to the bathroom, and placed her in the bathtub, then turned on the hot water for about an hour, causing severe injuries and burns all over her body.
Afterward, he confined her in a locked room until around 9 PM and arranged with his wife to contact a relative to take her to the hospital after he left the house, claiming that the burns on their daughter were due to an accident involving hot water in the kitchen.
The Ajdabiya Criminal Investigation Department confirmed that "upon interrogating the child's father and his wife and confronting them with the evidence, they were forced to admit to committing the crime. They were arrested and referred to the public prosecution to face justice," with the father also confirmed to be under the influence of drugs.
Following this crime, there was an outpouring of outrage from Libyans on social media, demanding the execution of the father and the harshest penalties for the stepmother. They urged the authorities to intervene to combat crime and its roots and to reduce its spread within society, especially during the month of Ramadan.
It is noteworthy that this incident occurred just a week after a terrifying crime in the Kabaw area of the western mountains, where a whole family (a father, pregnant wife, and their two children) was shot dead by the father's brothers due to a dispute over inheritance.
