Authorities in Libya have recovered at least 28 bodies from a mass grave in a desert near Kufra.
The country’s attorney general announced that the discovery comes just days after another grave with 19 bodies was found on a farm in the same city, BBC reports.
Officials uncovered the latest grave after raiding a human trafficking site, where authorities freed 76 migrants who had been detained and tortured, according to a statement posted on Facebook by the attorney general’s office.
One Libyan and two foreigners have been arrested, the statement added.
“There was a gang whose members deliberately deprived illegal migrants of their freedom, tortured them and subjected them to cruel, humiliating and inhumane treatment,” it said.
Images shared online—though not independently verified by the BBC—depict police and volunteers digging in the sand before placing corpses in black bags.
The search operation in Kufra, located over 1,700 kilometres (1,056 miles) from Tripoli, is ongoing.
Authorities say the recovered bodies have been taken for autopsy, with investigators probing possible links to smuggling networks. Survivors’ testimonies are being documented.
Last year, another mass grave containing at least 65 migrant bodies was found in south-west Libya, a discovery the International Organization for Migration (IOM) described as “deeply shocking.”
Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has become a key transit point for migrants risking perilous journeys across the desert and Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.
Unicef has reported that in 2024, over 2,200 people have died or gone missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.
