By Libya Herald staff.
Tunis, 9 March 2015:
Austrian and Czech diplomats are heading to Libya to try and make contact with IS . . .[restrict]after it was accused of kidnapping some nine oil workers in the Ghani oil field on Friday.
Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) who re-captured the oil field, south of Sirte, say eight of their colleague seized by militants at the site were subjected to a ritual beheading by IS, which then escaped with its foreign captives.
Army spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari has claimed that a worker who saw the beheading and reported it has since died of a heart attack.
The Austrian plant manager, a 39-year-old from the city of Linz, was kidnapped at the plant along with a Czech, a Bangladeshi and Ghanaian and four Filipinos, all employees with Austria’s VAOS, an oil services and engineering firm. The nationality of the ninth captive has not been disclosed.
In Prague, officials said a second Czech worker in Libya made contact on Saturday to say he was safe, but it was unclear if he was also working at Ghani.
Bangladesh and the Philippines both confirmed that their nationals had been captured in the raid, with Filippino officials saying they were offering help for hundreds more nationals wishing to leave Libya.
Investigations are hampered because almost all western embassies in Libya have closed, with much of the country torn by war. Austrian officials have arrived in the southern Tunisian town of Djerba and are expected to travel to Tripoli by land and make contact with Libya Dawn authorities there.
Questions may also be asked about why foreign employees remained at Ghani, in a region of the country where IS had already struck at three oil fields from its bases to the north at Sirte and Nawfalia. The oilfield had been shut down following the attack in February on Mabruk oilfield and most staff evacuated. However, it is thought that a small number remained for maintance reasons.
Many foreign oil companies have long since evacuated their own staff after a string of attacks and kidnappings, including the ritual execution of 21 Christians in Sirte last month, 20 of the Egyptian Copts.
VAOS has worked in Libya for nearly thirty years, establishing its plant at Ghani in 1986. It has extensive contracts in Eastern Libya, working also with Benghazi-based Agoco, a state owned oil company, though it is unclear how many staff VAOS now has in the country.
The company worked at Ghani alongside its client Harouge Oil Operations and states on its website that the site has “significant development potential.”
A senior Austrian foreign ministry official Michael Linhart, said “there is neither a sign of life nor a death proof,” regarding the missing men, with no contact since the attack.
IS units have struck four oil fields in the area south of Sirte, with Libya’s National Oil Corporation declaring a total of 11 have been shut down as a result of the fighting. The PFG which recaptured Ghani, says it lacks the manpower and weapons to secure all the country’s sprawling oil fields.
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