- Libya uncovers 2 mass graves with 49 bodies
- Victims were migrants seeking to reach Europe
- Human traffickers exploit Libya's instability
Libyan authorities have discovered nearly 50 bodies in two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, officials announced on Sunday. The gruesome findings are the latest tragedy to befall migrants seeking to reach Europe through the chaos-stricken North African country.
The first mass grave, containing 19 bodies, was found on Friday in a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra, according to a statement by the security directorate. Authorities took the bodies for autopsy and released images on their Facebook page showing police officers and medics digging in the sand and recovering dead bodies wrapped in blankets.
The al-Abreen charity, which assists migrants in eastern and southern Libya, reported that some of the victims appeared to have been shot and killed before being buried in the mass grave.
A separate mass grave, containing at least 30 bodies, was also discovered in Kufra after a raid on a human trafficking center, according to Mohamed al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra. Survivors claimed that nearly 70 people were buried in the grave, al-Fadeil added. Authorities are still searching the area.
The discovery of migrants’ mass graves is not uncommon in Libya. Last year, authorities unearthed the bodies of at least 65 migrants in the Shuayrif region, 350 kilometers south of the capital, Tripoli.
Libya has become the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East seeking to reach Europe. The country has been plagued by chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Oil-rich Libya has been ruled by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of militias and foreign governments. Human traffickers have exploited the instability, smuggling migrants across the country’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia.
Once at the coast, traffickers pack desperate migrants into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels for perilous voyages on the Central Mediterranean Sea route. Rights groups and U.N. agencies have documented systematic abuse of migrants in Libya, including forced labor, beatings, rapes, and torture.
The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families before migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats. Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya, including women and children, are held in government-run detention centers where they suffer from abuse, including torture, rape, and extortion, according to rights groups and U.N. experts.
