More than 45,000 Egyptians have fled Libya since jihadists published a video last month showing the beheading of Coptic Christians, most of them Egyptian, an official and state media said Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians work in the restive country to the west and send money home to support their families, but their exact number is uncertain because many enter illegally.

EU leaders said they would discuss Friday the attack in Tunis that left many European tourists dead and how unrest in neighboring Libya threatens broader European security.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack that left 21 people dead, including two Spaniards, a British woman, a Belgian woman, two French, a Pole and an Italian, authorities said.

Tunisia said two gunmen who killed 21 people at its national museum trained at a militant camp in Libya, as the country marked Independence Day in sombre fashion on Friday.

The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed Wednesday's attack on foreign tourists in Tunis, the deadliest since Tunisia's 2011 revolution, which sparked the Arab Spring regional uprisings.

Armed convoys, checkpoints and sporadic exchanges of gunfire are still common in the Libyan capital, but residents are flocking back to the streets and surprisingly hopeful of a brighter future.

Sitting in a newly opened cafe overlooking the blue waters of the Mediterranean, Mohammed, a 19-year-old student, said that while fear remains, Tripoli's residents are trying to get on with life.

Italy said Thursday it would increase its military presence in the central Mediterranean, describing a deadly attack on a museum in Tunis as fresh evidence of a growing threat from extremist groups.

"Following a worsening of the terrorist threat, dramatically demonstrated by yesterday's events in Tunisia, an increase in our air and naval deployments in the central Mediterranean has become necessary," Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti told the parliamentary defense and foreign affairs committee.

At least 12 militiamen in Libya were killed Wednesday in clashes with jihadists of the Islamic State group near the central city of Sirte, sources said.

The two sides have been engaged in sporadic fighting since Saturday around the city, home town of slain longtime strongman Moammar Gadhafi, whose regime was toppled in a 2011 NATO-backed revolt.

Libya's new army chief Khalifa Haftar on Monday promised his forces would seize Benghazi from Islamist militias within a month and called for wider support from the international community.

In an interview with AFP at his military compound about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of second city Benghazi, he said his forces would press to take the city by the middle of April and urged the international community to "stand with the Libyan army".

The Philippines said Tuesday a media report that the Islamic State group had abducted four Filipino medical workers in the Libyan city of Sirte was wrong.

One report cited members of a rival militia saying four nurses from the Philippines were abducted from Ibn Sina hospital on Monday, while another said about 20 medical workers, including Filipinos, were abducted at the same hospital.

Four individuals were charged on Monday for facilitating the illegal travel of migrants to Italy via Libya, the state-run National News Agency reported.

South Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Rahif Ramdan issued the charges against Palestinian Hasiba al-Hussein, and Lebanese Ghinwa Abou Zainab and Rita Razzouq, who were detained last week in the port city of Sidon, said NNA.

Human Rights Watch warned Sunday of the use of cluster bombs over the past four months in the Libyan conflict between forces of the North African country's rival governments.

"There is credible evidence of the use of banned cluster bombs in at least two locations in Libya since December 2014," HRW said in a statement released in Beirut.