TRIPOLI, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Libyan eastern-based army spokesman Ahmad Mismari said on Tuesday that army patrols found 16 bodies of illegal immigrants in the southeastern desert, Libyan News Agency reported.
"A patrol of the Tobruk military zone found 16 bodies of illegal immigrants, 310 km southwest of Tobruk city," Mismari said on Facebook.
"The patrol is still searching in the area," he added.
The bodies were rotten, and Red Crescent has identified some of the dead as Egyptians.
Earlier in July, army patrols found more than 20 bodies of Egyptian immigrants in the Libyan desert, who were later found to have entered Libya illegally and died from high temperature and hunger.
Large numbers of illegal immigrants cross the Mediterranean toward Europe from Libya every year because of insecurity and chaos in the war-torn country.
