Libyan border guards have rescued dozens of refugees and migrants who have been left in the desert by Tunisian authorities without water or food, and their numbers are “rising”, a Libyan officer says.
“The number of migrants keep rising every day,” Mohamad Abou Snenah, a member of a border patrol unit, said on Sunday, telling the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency it had rescued “50 to 70 migrants”.
“We offer them medical attention, first aid, considering the journey they have made through the desert.”
Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina reported on Monday that the number of refugees and migrants rescued by the Libyan forces with the help of the United Nations had risen to 191.
Hundreds of Black sub-Saharan Africans have been forcibly taken to the desert and hostile areas on the borders with Libya and Algeria after racial unrest in early July in Sfax, Tunisia’s second-largest city.
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Traina, reporting from Misrata, Libya, said the refugees and migrants were part of a larger group expelled from Sfax following riots.
The group was in an uninhabited area close to al-Assah, a town near the Tunisia-Libya border, nearly 150km (93 miles) west of Tripoli.
Source: Aljazeera.com
