Nadeen Ebrahim and Ahmed Elumami.

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters – Hundreds upon hundreds of bodies of Islamic State fighters are rotting outside a Libyan town while authorities decide what to do. It is a sad reminder of how disarray a failed electoral process was supposed to resolve.

They were stored in the dusty corner southeast of Misrata. The 742 corpses had been collected from the battlefields or informal graves in 2016, but no one was able to agree on where and how they should be buried.

But instead, Libyan conflict continued, frontlines moved, governments changed, and financial crises came an went. As power supply to refrigerators was cut, the corpses began to decay.

This compound is managed by a police force and is enclosed by fencing and cameras. It smells like decay. Under the scorching sun, weeds are growing between containers. A forensic tent that has been abandoned still stands.

Salah Ahmed from the Police Unit that is responsible for the management of the compound said, “Power cuts over long periods make it worse.

Originally assembled for identification purposes and burial. Foreign states, relatives, or fighters who are identified through documents, or ex-comrades, have yet to collect them. It is up to the Tripoli government, however, to dispose of them.

One of the plans to allocate a burial site in Sirte that Islamic State took in 2015, and held on for more than a year was stopped by Frontlines.

A second, which was to have them buried in the same cemetery that was originally for immigrants who had died crossing Libyan and onto Europe, was cancelled due to not being large enough.

According to the police, the temporary government has given a budget for the burial of the bodies. It has not yet been revealed a time or a place.

A request to comment was not received by the Government of National Unity.

Despite political jostling which undermined the election, and continuing rivalries between local forces in control of their fiefdoms, Tripoli’s authorities now have other priorities.

The possibility of a planned ballot in Libya last month was considered a way forward. It gave Libya’s new rulers the mandate they needed to end war with its ugly remnants. Despite a dispute over the rules of basic conduct among rival factions, the vote was never held.

MILITANTS EXPLOITED CHAOS

Libya was shattered after the NATO-supported uprising against MuammarGaddafi in 2011. Victorious rebel organizations disbanded, and factions struggled to control lucrative parts of state.

In the chaos and amid rising militancy in Arab Spring movements elsewhere, followers of Islamic State began staging attacks on territory and seizing it, including Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte.

Many foreign supporter of the group entered Libya in order to help local fighters.

For many, the symbol of collapse was the black Islamic State flag that flew over a large city in Libya.

After months of fighting and multiple deaths, pro-government forces defeated the rebel group in Sirte at the end of 2016.

Aside from the major gunfight in Tripoli, Islamic State’s attacks on desert cities have been restricted to a few small operations. However experts fear that it could return to war if there is a recurrence to major warfare.

For identification purposes and return to Libyan family members or their country of origin, the previous government directed bodies to be exhumed and taken from rubble.

The government also sought evidence to prove the entry of foreign terrorists into Libya.

The authorities used photographs and documents to identify more than 50 bodies. They were mostly Arab or African, but had provisional identifications for a British mother and a French baby.

The police who are looking after the bodies hope that the interim government will quickly find a solution. Fourteen of the 10 refrigerators aren’t working. If that occurs, the bodies must be transferred to units that work.

Libya is a large oil producer but political chaos has crippled its infrastructure.

Ahmad said that freezing the bodies is stressful and expensive. “The temperatures aren’t appropriate.”