The town of Ansar in Southern Lebanon woke up on Friday to a horrific crime after the Lebanese security services uncovered the bodies of the missing wife and daughters of the Ansar’s mayor, Zakaria Safawi.
The Lebanese army confirmed the identities of the bodies to be Basma Abbas, reportedly the divorced wife of the mayor, and his daughters Manal (16), Tala (20), and Rima (22).
The victims were reported missing 25 days prior, after being last seen accompanied by H.G. Fayyad (36), as revealed by the investigations that followed.
The investigations were launched upon the father filing a missing report claim, which eventually to the arrest of Fayyad as a suspect.
Fayyad confessed to having kidnaped the family with the help of an accomplice, murdered them in a cave, and then buried them in a citrus orchard between the towns of Ansar and Al-Zararia.
A massive search of the orchard area was conducted overnight under heavy rain and resumed Friday morning, leading to the uncovering of the four buried bodies.
As of the time of writing, the circumstances behind the family mass murder are still unknown. The investigations continue as well as the hunt for the accomplice.
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