In the most recent tragedy involving people trying to travel to Europe through the country’s southeast, Libya authorities have discovered nearly 50 bodies in two mass graves in the country’s southeast desert.
The security directorate announced in a statement on Sunday that 19 bodies were found in a mass grave in Kufra, which had been discovered on Friday in a farm. The remains were taken for autopsy.
After authorities raided a migrant detention center, according to Mohamed al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra, a second mass grave with at least 30 bodies was discovered in the city.
He added that authorities were still looking the area and nearly 70 people were buried there, according to reports from survivors.
Some of the people found in the mass graves had been shot and killed before being buried, according to Al-Abreen, a charity that assists migrants and refugees in eastern and southern Libya.
Prior to now, Libya, the main gateway for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to reach Europe, has been known to find mass graves with the bodies of asylum seekers.
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.
For years, human rights organizations and UN agencies have documented systematic abuse of asylum seekers in Libya, including beatings, rapes, and torture. The abuse frequently occurs in conjunction with attempts to extort money from families before leaving 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.
Source: Aljazeera
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