{"id":23686,"date":"2016-03-05T02:33:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-05T02:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/libya-violence-italian-workers-freed\/"},"modified":"2016-03-05T02:32:52","modified_gmt":"2016-03-05T02:32:52","slug":"libya-violence-italian-workers-freed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/libya-violence-italian-workers-freed\/","title":{"rendered":"Libya violence: Italian workers freed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Two Italian construction workers kidnapped in Libya have been freed, a local military official has said.}<\/p>\n<p>The other hostages may have been killed in a raid by Libya&#8217;s security forces on Thursday, the Italian foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>The four were abducted last year near a compound owned by Italian oil group Eni in the western Mellitah area.<\/p>\n<p>Libya descended into chaos since the 2011 Nato-led military campaign that overthrew Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.<\/p>\n<p>Two rival governments are vying for legitimacy and territory in Libya and the so-called Islamic State (IS) has gained a foothold in some parts of the country.<\/p>\n<p>The two workers were freed in Sabratha, around 70km (43 miles) west of the capital, Tripoli, the head of Sabratha Military Council, Taher el-Gharaballi, told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>The workers are employed by Bonatti, a company that provides services to the oil, gas and energy sector.<\/p>\n<p>Italy closed its embassy in Libya in February, calling on Italians to leave because of the security risks.<\/p>\n<p>The Sabratha local brigade has been fighting since last week, when militants briefly overran the city centre and killed about a dozen brigade fighters.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, a US air strike targeted an IS camp on the outskirts of the city, killing about 40 people, including two Serbian nationals who had been held hostage since November.<\/p>\n<p>Sabratha is one of several Libyan cities where IS militants have established a presence in Libya.<\/p>\n<p>Nine foreign oil workers were kidnapped by IS in March.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-10770 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_84372625_84372624.jpg\" alt=\"Italy closed its embassy in Libya in February, warning nationals to leave\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Two Italian construction workers kidnapped in Libya have been freed, a local military official has said.} The other hostages may have been killed in a raid by Libya&#8217;s security forces on Thursday, the Italian foreign ministry said. The four were abducted last year near a compound owned by Italian oil group Eni in the western [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23686"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23686"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}