CAIRO (AA) – Dozens of Egyptian truck drivers, freed after several days of captivity in neighboring Libya, returned home to Egypt on Monday through the Saloum border crossing linking the two countries.
The 70 drivers had finished departure procedures from Libya and had begun heading to Egypt in their trucks, an Anadolu Agency correspondent reported.
Last week, Libyan militiamen kidnapped the drivers, later asking the Egyptian government to free 13 Libyan prisoners jailed in Egypt in exchange for the release of the abducted truckers.
The drivers' families received phone calls from the kidnappers saying the drivers were being held by Libyan armed groups who were demanding the release of 13 Libyan prisoners, some of whom were serving jail terms in Egypt of up to 25 years, relatives told AA.
The drivers, most of them from the Nile Delta city of Kafr al-Zayat, had been driving back to Egypt after delivering goods across the border into Libya when they were kidnapped in Ajdabiya in eastern Libya, they said.
On Sunday, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Ati said that communication between the Egyptian and Libyan sides had led to the release of the kidnapped drivers.
Libyans have been struggling to restore order to their country since the death two years ago of longstanding strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Earlier this month, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was briefly abducted by members of an armed militia believed to belong to the Operations Room of Libya's Revolutionaries. The group, however, has denied any involvement in the abduction.
Relations between Cairo and Tripoli have become tense due to recent attacks on Egyptian churches in Libya and Tripoli's calls for Cairo to hand over Gaddafi-era officials.
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