Four Italian construction workers kidnapped in Libya
Date 2015/7/20 21:19:05 | Topic: Libya
|  Four Italian construction workers have been abducted in the western Libyan city of Mellitah, Italy’s Foreign Ministry says.
The employees of the Bonatti construction company were kidnapped around an industrial complex owned by the Italian energy giant Eni west of the capital, Tripoli, the ministry said in a Monday statement.
No group or individual has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions.
A crisis unit is “in constant contact with the families and the company Bonatti,” the statement said.
The ministry had earlier urged Italians to leave the North African country over escalating violence. The Italian embassy in Libya has been closed since February 15.
Libya plunged into chaos following a popular revolution in 2011 that led to the ouster and eventual killing of its long-time dictator Muammer Gaddafi.
The country currently has two parliaments and governments vying for power, one in Tripoli and the other, the internationally-recognized one, in the eastern port city of Tobruk.
Battles among rival militants, who had participated in the anti-Gaddafi uprising, are mainly over the control of oil facilities in eastern Libya.
Exploiting the power vacuum in Libya, the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group, which is mainly operating in Iraq and Syria, has spread its acts of terror to the violence-wracked country.
The ISIL has so far beheaded dozens of foreigners and attacked a number of foreign missions in Tripoli.
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