Libya – Austria said it had some evidence that nine foreign oilfield workers abducted by Islamist militants in Libya in 2015 were killed the same year, though it was still trying to verify the information. The four Filipinos, two Bangladeshis, one Austrian, one Czech and one Ghanaian worked at the al-Ghani oilfield for equipment firm VAOS, which specializes in Libya and has offices in Austria and Malta. An Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman said a crisis team was trying to verify information from a militant Islamist website suggesting that all or some of the hostages may have been killed in 2015. They were seized in March of that year. We have some evidence that the worst is to be feared. We are working on verifying the information. It is still unclear what happened exactly to whom, the spokesman said. Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz had contacted the family of the Austrian man. Even if it turns out that the evidence is correct it will be extremely difficult to retrieve bodies from the area where fighting continues, the spokesman said.
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