Libya authorities have uncovered nearly 50 bodies from two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, in the latest tragedy involving people seeking to reach Europe through the North African country.
The security directorate said in a statement on Sunday that one mass grave found on Friday in a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra contained 19 bodies. The remains were taken for autopsy.
Mohamed al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra, said a second mass grave with at least 30 bodies was also found in the city after authorities raided a migrant detention centre.
He added that according to survivor accounts, nearly 70 people were buried in that site and authorities were still searching the area.
Al-Abreen, a charity that helps migrants and refugees in eastern and southern Libya, said that some of the people found in the mass graves had been shot and killed before they were buried.
Mass graves containing the bodies of asylum seekers have previously been discovered in Libya, the main transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe.
Last year, authorities unearthed the bodies of at least 65 migrants in the Shuayrif region, south of the capital Tripoli.
Human traffickers have benefited from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants and refugees across the country’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.
Rights groups and United Nations agencies have for years documented systematic abuse of asylum seekers in Libya including forced labour, beatings, rapes and torture. The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families before they are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats.
Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centres where they suffer from abuse, including torture, rape and extortion, according to rights groups and UN experts.
The country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The oil-rich nation has been ruled for most of the past decade by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of fighter groups and foreign governments.
