bazel build: failing to link external non-bazel shared library - build

Question

I am experimenting with Bazel for the first time. I am trying to build a shared library using Bazel-3.7.2. The shared library has an external non-Bazel library dependency. After Bazel build I get the new shared library ".so" file. But using ldd I cannot find the external dependency.
The WORKSPACE file looks as follows. Here libxed.so is the extern shared library.
# xed library
new_local_repository(
name = "libxed",
path = "dependencies/xed/kits/xed-install-base",
build_file_content = """
cc_library(
name = "libxed",
srcs = ["lib/libxed.so"],
hdrs = glob([
"include/xed/*.h",
]),
visibility = ["//visibility:public"],
)
""",
)
# xed header files
new_local_repository(
name = "libxed_headers",
path = "dependencies/xed/kits/xed-install-base/include/xed",
build_file_content = """
cc_library(
name = "xed",
hdrs = glob([
"*.h",
]),
visibility = ["//visibility:public"],
)
""",
)
The BUILD file:
load("#rules_cc//cc:defs.bzl", "cc_binary", "cc_library")
cc_library(
name = "themis",
srcs = glob(
["src/main.cpp",
"src/tools/Themis/*.cpp",
],
),
hdrs = glob([
"includes/tools/Themis/mytool.hpp",
]),
strip_include_prefix = "includes",
linkopts = ["-pthread", "-lrt", "-lunwind", "-ldl"],
deps = [
"#libxed_headers//:xed",
"#libxed//:libxed",
],
visibility = ["//visibility:public"],
)
After building the library it creates libthemis.so.
ldd bazel-bin/libthemis.so
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffe410ab000)
libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f70e7de8000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f70e7a4a000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f70e7842000)
libunwind.so.8 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libunwind.so.8 (0x00007f70e7627000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f70e7423000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f70e7204000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f70e6e13000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f70e8171000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f70e6bfb000)
liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007f70e69d5000)
Here libthemis.so does not include libxed.so. Note that I can build the Themis library with Cmake correctly. How can I fix the Bazel build?