BELGRADE — Two Serbian embassy staffers who had been held hostage in Libya since November are believed to have been killed in Friday’s US air strikes on a Daesh camp in western Libya, Serbia’s foreign minister said Saturday.
Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic identified the two as Sladjana Stankovic, a communications officer, and Jovica Stepic, a driver. They were snatched in November after their diplomatic convoy, including the ambassador, came under fire near the coastal Libyan city of Sabratha.
Speaking at a news conference in Belgrade, Dacic said information about the deaths was given to Serbia by foreign officials but had not yet been confirmed by the Libyan government.
“We got the information, including photos, which clearly show that this is most probably true,” Dacic said.
American F-15E fighter-bombers struck a Daesh training camp in rural Libya near the Tunisian border Friday, killing dozens, probably including an Daesh operative considered responsible for deadly attacks in Tunisia last year, US and local officials have said.
A Libyan armed group calling itself the Special Deterrent Forces announced on Facebook that the two bodies had been delivered to Tripoli’s Matiga Airport. The group posted pictures showing two green coffins inside a hearse, and another of one of the coffins sitting on a tarmac next to a small plane.
The Special Deterrent Forces are loyal to the militia-backed government that now controls the western Libyan city of Tripoli. The group’s posting did not indicate when the bodies would be flown to Serbia or whether officials in the Tripoli government were in contact with Belgrade.
In November, gunmen in Libya crashed into a convoy of vehicles taking Serbia’s ambassador to neighboring Tunisia and then kidnapped two embassy employees. Serbian ambassador Oliver Potezica, who escaped unharmed and was traveling in the three-vehicle convoy with his wife and two sons aged 8 and 14, later recounted the attack.
“It happened like in a movie,” Potezica told Tanjug news agency from Tunisia. “The attack happened when one of the embassy cars was hit from behind. When the driver came out to check what happened, he was dragged into one of the attackers’ cars.”
One Libyan security officer traveling with the convoy was wounded by gunfire during the attack.
Since the 2011 overthrow of Libya’s longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi, the sprawling North African nation has fractured into warring camps backed by a loose array of militias, former rebels and tribes.
Libya’s internationally recognized government has been forced out of the capital, Tripoli, and now operates out of the eastern cities of Tobruk and Bayda. Another government, backed by Islamist-affiliated militias known as Libya Dawn, controls Tripoli and much of western Libya. United Nations-brokered efforts to form a unity government continue to falter.
The chaos has provided fertile ground for extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group to flourish. — AP
