49 migrant bodies found in 2 mass graves in southeastern Libya

Cairo — 

Libyan authorities person uncovered astir 50 bodies from 2 wide graves successful the country’s southeastern desert, officials said Sunday, successful the latest calamity involving radical seeking to scope Europe done the chaos-stricken North African country.

The archetypal wide sedate with 19 bodies was recovered Friday successful a workplace successful the southeastern metropolis of Kufra, the information directorate said successful a statement, adding that authorities took them for autopsy.

Authorities posted images connected its Facebook leafage showing constabulary officers and medics digging successful the soil and recovering dormant bodies that were wrapped successful blankets.

The al-Abreen charity, which helps migrants successful eastbound and confederate Libya, said that immoderate were seemingly changeable and killed earlier being buried.

A abstracted wide grave, with astatine slightest 30 bodies, was besides recovered successful Kufra aft raiding a quality trafficking center, according to Mohamed al-Fadeil, caput of the information enclosure successful Kufra. Survivors said astir 70 radical were buried successful the grave, helium added. Authorities were inactive searching the area.

Later Sunday, authorities said they freed 76 migrants from the trafficking halfway and arrested 3 radical — a Libyan and 2 foreigners — connected suspicion of detaining and torturing migrants. Prosecutors ordered the suspects to stay successful detention pending investigation.

Migrants’ wide graves are not uncommon successful Libya. Last year, authorities unearthed the bodies of astatine slightest 65 migrants successful the Shuayrif region, 350 kilometers (220 miles) southbound of the capital, Tripoli.

Libya is the ascendant transit constituent for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to marque it to Europe. The state was plunged into chaos pursuing a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Gadhafi successful 2011. Oil-rich Libya has been ruled for astir of the past decennary by rival governments successful eastbound and occidental Libya, each backed by an array of militias and overseas governments.

Human traffickers person benefited from much than a decennary of instability, smuggling migrants crossed the country’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.

Once astatine the coast, traffickers battalion hopeless migrants seeking a amended beingness successful Europe into ill-equipped rubber boats and different vessels for risky voyages connected the perilous Central Mediterranean Sea route.

Rights groups and U.N. agencies person for years documented systematic maltreatment of migrants successful Libya including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture. The maltreatment often accompanies efforts to extort wealth from families earlier migrants are allowed to permission Libya connected traffickers’ boats.

Those who person been intercepted and returned to Libya — including women and children — are held successful government-run detention centers wherever they besides endure from abuse, including torture, rape and extortion, according to rights groups and U.N. experts.