Libya finds two mass graves with bodies of nearly 50 migrants, refugees

Libyan authorities discovered two mass graves in the country's southeastern desert, exhuming nearly 50 bodies. This tragedy once again highlights the risks faced by people attempting to reach Europe through North African countries.

Security services issued a statement on Sunday stating that the first mass grave, containing 19 bodies, was discovered on Friday at a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra. These remains have been sent for autopsy. Mohammed Fadel, head of the Kufra security services, said that a second mass grave containing at least 30 bodies was found in the city after authorities raided an immigration detention center.

Fadel added that, according to survivors' accounts, approximately 70 people were buried at the site, and authorities are still searching the area. A charity called Al-Abreen, dedicated to helping migrants and refugees in eastern and southern Libya, stated that some of those found in the mass graves had been shot to death before being buried.

Previously, mass graves containing the remains of asylum seekers have been discovered in Libya on multiple occasions. Libya is a major transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East attempting to reach Europe. Last year, authorities exhumed the remains of at least 65 migrants in the Shuwairef area, south of the capital Tripoli. For over a decade, human traffickers have exploited Libya's instability to smuggle migrants and refugees across the country's borders with six countries: Chad, Niger, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia.

For years, human rights organizations and UN agencies have documented systematic abuse against asylum seekers within Libya, including forced labor, beatings, rape, and torture. This abuse is often accompanied by extorting money from their families before they are allowed to leave Libya on smugglers' boats. According to human rights organizations and UN experts, those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centers, where they suffer abuse including torture, rape, and extortion.

Libya has been in turmoil since the NATO-backed uprising that overthrew and killed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. For most of the past decade, the oil-rich country has been ruled by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of fighting groups and foreign governments.