Libyan border guards have recovered the bodies of several migrants while patrolling the desert area near the Tunisian boundary.
A statement by Libya's Interior Ministry said the border agents discovered five unidentified bodies of irregular migrants of African origin in the Dahr Al-Khass area near the Tunisian border.
"The bodies were handed over to the authorities," a border guard, who declined to be named, told AFP.
For the past week, the Libyan border guards have been on alert to rescue African migrants who said Tunisian authorities had taken them to an uninhabited area close to Al-Assah, a town near the Tunisia-Libya border, some 150 kilometers west of Tripoli.
Online videos published by border agents show migrants visibly exhausted and dehydrated after making the journey by foot across the Tunisian border.
AFP correspondents filmed men, women, and children, including toddlers, exhausted and dehydrated, sheltering in shrubs in the middle of the desert.
The Tunisian authorities transferred hundreds of migrants, especially from the port city of Sfax, as racial tensions flared following the death of a Tunisian man in a clash between locals and migrants on July 3.
