Libya's prosecutors say they have handed over the bodies of 20 Coptic Christian workers, who were beheaded on a beach in the coastal city of Sirte by Islamic State militants, to their families in Egypt.

They say Monday that the bodies have been flown to Egypt from Misrata, Libya's third largest city.

Libyan authorities recovered the bodies of the Egyptians along with a Coptic Christian from Ghana in October.

In February 2015, Egyptians were shocked by a grisly video of the beheadings. Cairo staged punitive airstrikes against militant targets in Libya.

Sirte had been a stronghold of IS militants before they fled the city inland in 2016.

Libya has descended into chaos since a popular 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.