Bodies of 29 more migrants found in southeast Libya

14/2/2025 6:16

Libyan security authorities

have recovered at least 29 more bodies of migrants in a mass

grave in the southeast of the country, a security official told

Reuters on Thursday.



The total number of bodies recovered has now climbed to 57,

after the attorney general said on Sunday that the authorities

had recovered the corpses of 28 others in the north of Kufra, a

huge southeastern district of the country.



The International Organization for Migration said on Monday

that the bodies found in two mass graves in Libya bore gunshot

wounds.



The main town in Kufra lies about 1,700 kilometres (1,000

miles) from the capital Tripoli.



"We expect to find other graves during the ongoing

recovering operation," said Mohamed Fadil, the head of services

fighting illegal migration in the largely desert region.



Fadil said the bodies had been numbered and samples for DNA

testing taken in the presence of prosecutors and the criminal

investigation department.



Pictures shared with Reuters by a security source from Kufra

showed security authorities and Libyan Red Crescent volunteers

had set up tents in the desert, with white lines visible on the

ground marking out the graves.



Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing

conflict and poverty to Europe via dangerous routes across the

vast Sahara desert and over the Mediterranean, following the

toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.



On February 6, the security directorate in the Alwahat

region in the east of Libya recovered 19 bodies from a mass

grave in Jikharra, while the Libyan Red Crescent recovered 10

bodies of migrants off Dila port in Zawiya city in the west

after their boat sank.