Sisi greets 20 Egyptians at airport after release from captivity in Libya

Twenty Egyptians who had been held captive by Libyan militia groups were greeted by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi at Cairo airport on Tuesday after their release.

“We won’t leave any Egyptians in danger in Libya or anywhere else,” El-Sisi told journalists at the airport.

The president added that hard efforts, in cooperation with the Libyan army and General Hafter, had brought about the release of the twenty.

The Egyptians were abducted from the city of Al-Jufrah, 750km from Libya’s capital Tripoli, earlier this month. They come from the same village, Dakuff, in the governorate of Minya in Upper Egypt.

Libya has become deeply fractured since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Since the summer of 2014 it has had two rival governments and parliaments, operating from the capital Tripoli and from the east.

Both are backed by loose alliances of armed brigades of rebels who once fought Gaddafi.

For decades, Libya has been a major destination for Egyptian migrant workers due to its once booming oil economy, geographical proximity and open borders.

Last year ISIS militants beheaded 20 Egyptian Christians and one Ethiopian Christian near the Libyan city of Sirte, in a video circulated by the group’s propagandists.

The Egyptian foreign ministry has repeatedly called on all expats still living in Libya to return home.

source:Ahram Online