More than 300 refugees are being held in the desert of Libya, according to the military

Soldiers in Libya said on Monday that they had caught more than 300 people trying to cross the desert and get to the Mediterranean.

Photos from above taken by the 444 brigade, which is part of the Libyan army and is based in Tripoli, showed groups of men, women, and children sitting on the ground with soldiers all around them.

Someone in the desert stopped the migrants and said they would be “referred to the competent authorities,” which is what the brigade wrote on its Facebook page early Monday morning. It didn’t say when they were being held.

Libya hasn’t had much peace since an uprising against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 that was backed by NATO. In 2014, the country split into western and eastern parts, with different governments running things from Tripoli and Benghazi.

The country has become an important way for hundreds of thousands of people to get to Europe by crossing the Mediterranean. They are leaving war and poverty in parts of Africa and the Middle East.