Dozens of people are feared dead afterward human traffickers abandoned them inwards Niger's northern desert without nutrient or water, a senior local official said on Monday.
Fatoumi Boudou, the prefect of Niger's northern percentage of Bilma, told the AFP word means that authorities on Lord's Day rescued 24 people who were part of a grouping of "70 people who had left inwards iii vehicles from Agadez for Libya". 
Agadez is a remote town inwards Niger on the border of the Sahara desert that has run a major people-smuggling point.
The traffickers "abandoned them inwards the midpoint of the desert without nutrient or water", Boudou said, adding that those rescued had spoken of several dead bodies without specifying a number.
But the Agadez-based Air Info website, citing a safety source, said scores of bodies had been buried on Lord's Day past times troops in addition to locals.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 local radio station had said 52 dead bodies had been discovered past times authorities on Sunday.
The 750-km trip from Agadez to the Libyan border takes betwixt ii in addition to iii days alongside exclusively really brusque petrol in addition to lavatory stops on the way.
Boudou said searches across a 65-km radius had yielded 1 dead trunk "with the identity bill of fare of a Nigerian student".
In early on June, at to the lowest degree 44 Libya-bound migrants, including women in addition to babies, died of thirst in the Sahara desert afterward their vehicle broke downwards inwards scorching conditions.
In May 2015, the regime inwards Niamey adopted a constabulary banning the trafficking of migrants in addition to refugees alongside those flora guilty facing a prison theatre judgement of betwixt 1 in addition to thirty years, in addition to fines of upward to thirty 1000000 CFA francs ($51,000).
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya has long struggled to command its southern borders alongside Sudan, Republic of Chad in addition to Niger, fifty-fifty earlier the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi. 
In the chaos that followed, traffickers stepped upward their business, alongside tens of thousands of people each twelvemonth making the perilous crossing to Italia but approximately 300km away.
FRG in addition to Italia terminal calendar month called for a EU mission to live on installed on the border betwixt Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in addition to Niger to cut down the catamenia of migrants in addition to refugees.
Source: AFP word agency