(WFLA)—Grainy cell phone video obtained by CNN shows what appears to be a slave auction in Libya.

The news network reports Libyan officials are investigating after their bombshell investigation into slave auctions in the country.

CNN’s Alex Platt and Raja Razek witnessed a dozen men “being sold like commodities—some auctioned off for as little as $400.”

The journalists learned of auctions at nine different locations across Libya, but say many more are believed to occur in the North African nation each month.

In the video, a Nigerian man in his twenties is offered up for sale as one of a group of “big strong boys for farm work,” according to the auctioneer, who remains off camera.

“Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he’ll dig,” the salesman, dressed in camouflage gear, says. “What am I bid, what am I bid?”

“Buyers raise their hands as the price rises, ‘500, 550, 600, 650 …’ Within minutes it is all over and the men, utterly resigned to their fate, are being handed over to their new ‘masters,'” the report said.

The reporters met with the two men after they were sold and said they were so traumatized, they couldn’t speak and were suspicious of everyone they met.

CNN says tens of thousands of people pour across Libya’s borders each year. The United Nations estimates there are nearly 700,000 migrants living in the country.

“Most have sold everything they own to finance the journey through Libya to the coast and the gateway to the Mediterranean,” the report said.

Due to a recent crackdown by the Libyan coastguard, fewer boats are making it out to sea, “leaving the smugglers with a backlog of would-be passengers on their hands,” and creating a slave-master dynamic between migrants and refugees, the network reports.

According to CNN, Libyan authorities have launched a formal investigation into slave auctions in the country.

“A high-level committee has been convened encompassing representatives from all the security apparatus to oversee this investigation,” Anes Alazabi, an official with the internationally recognized government of Libya’s Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency, told CNN.

“Priorities of the investigation are not only to convict those responsible for these inhumane acts, but also to identify the location of those who have been sold in order to bring them to safety and return them to their countries of origin.”

Click here to read the original report, and click here to read the follow-up to their investigation.STORIES OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON: