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The Ministry of the Interior of the Eastern Libyan Government announced that authorities in the region are investigating the disappearance of a member of parliament, denying the news of his murder and indicating some security tension in Eastern Libya, despite the security situation there being better than in the western region controlled by militias.

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The ministry’s media director stated in a statement on Friday evening that Ibrahim Al-Darsi, a member of parliament from Benghazi, is missing after his house was robbed.

The Ministry of the Interior in Osama Hamad‘s government, rival to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, said it had taken “immediate steps to investigate this incident.”

The statement said, “The Ministry of the Interior categorically denies the circulating news about his murder, asserting that this news is completely false, and calls on the media and citizens not to follow unreliable rumors.”

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In July 2019, parliament member Siham Sergiwa and her husband were kidnapped from their home in Benghazi and remain missing. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya called for their release.

Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, hosts the headquarters of the House of Representatives and Hamad‘s government, allied with the Libyan National Army led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

The issue of kidnapping politicians and businessmen is a pressing issue in Libya, warned against by the UN mission, which called for addressing the rampant violence and dismantling armed groups.

• A new wave of tension between eastern and western Libya threatens to undermine the political process

The abduction of a three-year-old child in Zliten, western Libya, a few weeks ago, sparked wide controversy after the kidnappers released a video of the child being physically tortured and threatened with a weapon to force his family to pay a ransom.

The security chaos in Libya in recent years has led to the emergence of networks specialized in theft and kidnapping to demand large sums of money for the release of their victims.

• First meeting between the leaders of the eastern and western Libyan armies

Recently, some social media pages reported news about the spread of gangs in several areas of Libya, kidnapping children for the trade of human organs.

The House of Representatives was elected in 2014 when Libya split following a civil war between two rival administrations in the country’s east and west. Libya has slid into security chaos after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

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The resignation of UN envoy Abdoulaye Bathily was seen as evidence of the significant political stagnation in the country, despite efforts and meetings held in neighboring countries over the past years.