The bodies of five sub-Saharan Africans have been discovered by Libyan authorities in a militarised buffer zone between the country’s border with Tunisia.

The discovery comes after weeks of mass expulsions of black Africans by the Tunisian government.

The policy followed violent clashes between migrants and residents in Tunisia’s second city of Sfax – a main departure point for people trying to cross the Mediterranean illegally to Europe.

Rights groups say hundreds of black Africans - some of whom have legal status in Tunisia - were bussed to the remote desert buffer zone and abandoned without food or water.