Serbian Worker kidnapped in Libya
A Serbian worker has been kidnapped in Libya, Belgrade's foreign ministry said Tuesday, two months after the deaths of two abducted Serbian embassy employees in the North African country.
State broadcaster RTS named the man as 46-year-old Miroslav Tomic, an employee of a German company, who was seized on Saturday while visiting an oil well in a remote area of the lawless country near the border with Egypt.
Originally from western Serbia, he has been working in Libya for 20 years, RTS said.
"More details about this abduction will be released very soon," a spokesman for the Serbian foreign ministry told AFP.
In February, a US strike on an Islamic State jihadist camp in Libya killed two Serbian embassy employees who had been kidnapped in the area in November, the Serbian government said.
Embassy communications chief Sladjana Stankovic and her driver Jovica Stepic were kidnapped in the coastal city of Sabratha, 70 kilometers (40 miles) west of Tripoli, from a convoy of cars heading to the Tunisian border.
Libya descended into chaos after the October 2011 ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and has become a magnet for militants who receive weapons training in jihadist camps before launching deadly attacks in other countries.
Serbian citizens -- mostly doctors, other medical staff and construction workers -- have been working in Libya for decades due to close relations during Gadhafi's regime.
After the deaths of the embassy employees were announced, the Pentagon disputed claims they were killed by the U.S. strike.
Source: Agence France Presse
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