Libyan border guards have rescued a group of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries after they were forcibly taken to uninhabited desert areas by the Tunisian authorities, AFP reported on Sunday.
The French news agency said its team at the border saw at least six men and a group of women and children left to their fate in the scorching summer heat that topped 40 degrees Celsius.
The group were in an uninhabited area close to Al-Assah, a town near the Tunisia-Libya border, nearly 150 kilometers west of Tripoli.
The migrants were visibly exhausted and dehydrated, sheltering in shrubs in the middle of the desert, an officer from the border patrol unit told the AFP.
"We offer them medical attention, first aid, considering the journey they have made through the desert," the officer added.
AFP correspondents said they saw women and children, including toddlers, lying on mattresses and eating yogurt at a reception centre.
Tunisian security transferred these immigrants to desert and hostile areas bordering Libya and Algeria after racial unrest in early July in Sfax, Human Rights Watch Organization, which criticized the move, stated.
A few days ago, the Tunisian authorities said they began to shelter illegal immigrants stuck on the border with Libya in cooperation with the Tunisian Red Crescent.
The official spokesman for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, Ramadan Benomar, said that between 100 and 150 immigrants, including women and children, are still in the border areas with Libya.
