TRIPOLI, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Libyan authorities said Saturday that four unidentified bodies were recovered near the town of Zillah, about 750 km southeast of the capital Tripoli.
"Four bodies were found buried deep in the desert, specifically near the town of Zillah, some of which had partially decomposed," the General Authority for Research and Identification of Missing Persons said in a statement.
Similar reports were also received from the cities of Murzuq and Sabha in southern Libya, and investigations are scheduled to begin within the next two days, it said.
On Thursday, Libyan authorities said three unidentified bodies were recovered near the city of Jufra, located some 650 km southeast of Tripoli.
In February, Jufra District Police reported the arrest of a group of migrant smugglers in Zillah accused of killing migrants and burying their bodies in the desert, as well as kidnapping, starving, raping, and selling migrants.
In late March, Libyan authorities said that they had freed 82 migrants who were held captive in Zillah by a criminal group demanding ransom, and that they had arrested four members of the criminal group.
One of the arrested admitted that 10 migrants had been tortured to death in captivity and that ransoms of up to 10,000 U.S. dollars per person were demanded, authorities said.
Because of the insecurity and chaos in Libya since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, many migrants, mostly Africans, chose to cross the Mediterranean to Europe from Libya. ■
