CAIRO
At least 58 staffers from the Egyptian embassy in Libya returned home late Saturday, hours after five Egyptian diplomats were kidnapped in the North African country, sources in Cairo airport said.
The staffers returned home with their families, including Ambassador Mohamed Abu Bakr and military attaché Ibrahim Moussa, the sources said. It was not clear how many embassy personnel remained in Tripoli.
Abu Bakr met earlier Saturday with Prime Minister Ali Zeidan in Tripoli to discuss the crisis, sources with the premier’s office said.
On Saturday, Libyan militants abducted Egypt's cultural attaché and three embassy staffers in capital Tripoli, bringing the total number of Egyptians kidnapped in the North African country since Friday to five.
The abductions, which were confirmed by Libya's Foreign Ministry, came shortly after the Libyan Revolutionaries Operations Room, a local armed group, threatened to take escalatory measures against Egypt for the recent arrest by Egyptian authorities of the group's former leader.
On Friday, Egyptian authorities arrested Shabaan Hediya in an area between Egypt's northwestern provinces of Matrouh and Alexandria.
The Revolutionaries Operations Room has described Egypt's arrest of its former commander as "arbitrary" and "lacking any legal basis."
In July, the Libyan parliament entrusted the Revolutionaries Operations Room with securing capital Tripoli, allocating 900 million dinars (roughly $7.6 million) for the group's budget.
The group, controlled by former Libyan revolutionaries, made headlines in October after it briefly detained Zeidan on allegations of corruption and bribery.
Zeidan's brief abduction prompted parliament to strip the group of its mandate to secure the capital.
Libyans have struggled to bring order to their country since the ouster and death of long-serving strongman Muammar Gaddafi in late 2011.
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