BEHEADINGS PROMPT 25,000 EGYPTIANS TO LEAVE LIBYA

Tripoli, 8 Jumadil Awwal 1436/27 February 2015 (MINA) – Tens of thousands of Egyptians have returned home from neighboring Libya after a video emerged of beheadings by ISIS group.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced Friday that more than 25,000 Egyptian nationals have left Libya since the group posted a video online earlier in the month showing the militants beheading 21 Egyptian Copts, Press Tv quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Friday (27/2).

The beheadings caused a huge uproar in Egypt with the government starting air strikes against the positions of ISIS in Libya.

The government also demanded a massive population of Egyptian expatriates living in Libya to return home.

The foreign ministry statement showed that more than 21,000 Egyptians have returned home through the Sallum border crossing.

It said that around 4,000 people have left Libya for Tunisia in order to board planes chartered by Cairo. More than 1.5 million Egyptians used to work and live in Libya before Libya’s long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.

The number has significantly declined as hundreds of thousands have left the country over the past four years to avoid bloodshed.

Opposing militants continue to battle each other in Libya where the country is divided between the two rival groups.

The internationally recognized government and parliament which is based in the eastern city of Tobruk and a rival government based in Tripoli.

Concerns have grown about the possibility that Libya may turn into a safe haven for the ISIS group, who currently control swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, thus posing a greater challenge to the security and stability of the world. (T/P002/R04)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)