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Libya: Briton and New Zealander found dead with gunshot wounds Briton and New Zealander shot dead in Libya, reports say
(about 2 hours later)
A Briton and a New Zealander, both with gunshot wounds, were found dead in western Libya on Thursday. The Foreign Office is investigating reports from Libya that a Briton and a New Zealander have been shot dead in the west of the country.
In a separate incident, Libyan security sources said two US citizens had been arrested in the eastern city of Benghazi. Libyan media are reporting that the pair were found dead near Mellitah, Libya's main gas export terminal on the coast, 60 miles west of the capital Tripoli.
The security situation has deteriorated in recent months in the north African country, where the government is struggling to rein in and disarm militias and tribesmen who helped to oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. A photograph circulating on social mediapurportedly of the pair shows the bodies of a man and woman in civilian clothes lying face down on sandy terrain. There are reports that a Briton working for the Melittah oil and gas complex is missing.
"Their bodies were found near the coastal area of Mellitah," one source said, referring to a large oil and gas complex co-owned by Italy's ENI and a residential area near the town of Zuwarah and 100km west of Tripoli. A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We are aware of reports that the bodies of two foreign nationals have been found in Libya and are urgently seeking further information from the authorities."
Another source said the New Zealander was a woman and the Briton a man. Both were found outside the oil complex, he said. Reuters reported a Libyan source as saying the dead were a British man and a woman from New Zealand.
No further details were immediately available. The discovery of the bodies comes a month after an American teacher at an international school in the eastern city of Benghazi was shot dead while he was jogging.
Meanwhile, two US citizens were being held by the Libyan army at its headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, several security and army sources told Reuters. Last week, four American security officers from the US embassy were detained for several hours with weapons confiscated at Sabratha, near Mellitah. The men said they were in the area checking an evacuation route to Tunisia for the US embassy.
Both were basketball players and were arrested on the campus of the University of Benghazi, one security source said. Separately there were reports on Thursday night that two American basketball coaches had been arrested by the army in Benghazi.
"They were arrested by university guards and then brought by special forces to the army barracks," an army source said. The area west of Tripoli has seen several months of sporadic violence, and Melittah's oil and gas terminals have been affected by a months-long blockade by militias that has shut down the bulk of Libya's oil production since August, starving the government of revenue.
The US state department and Britain's Foreign Office said they were looking into the matter. Attacks on foreign targets have been frequent but have mostly been confined to embassies. Last year US ambassador Chris Stevens was killed when the American consulate in Benghazi was overrun. Britain closed its own consulate in the city after its ambassador came under rocket attack.
Last Friday, four US military personnel were detained by the Libyan government and released after several hours in custody, US and Libyan officials said. Militia violence across much of the country has prompted many foreigners to leave, and embassies are used to periodic lockdowns such as the one triggered during October kidnapping of the prime minister Ali Zaidan and the massacre of 47 protestors by a militia in Tripoli in November.
Late last year the Foreign Office tightened its travel advice to Libya, advising against all travel to most of the country, and against all but essential travel to the capital and some coastal areas.
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