South Korea deploys warship to Libya as hostages appear in video
Three Filipino engineers and a South Korean were abducted in an attack on a water project site in western Libya on July 6
Seoul said Thursday it had deployed a warship to Libya in an apparent show of force to secure the release of a South Korean national kidnapped along with three Filipinos in the North African country.
The 4,000-tonne vessel, Munmu the Great, which takes part in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, was now on its way to Libya, officials said.
In addition to “carrying out its duty of protecting commercial vessels, (the warship) is also preparing for all possibilities including the need for military support”, a defence ministry spokesman said, without elaborating further.
The three Filipino engineers and a South Korean were abducted in an attack on a water project site in western Libya on July 6.
Their governments confirmed they were featured in a video shared on social media this week. The video, also posted by the SITE Intelligence group, shows the four men addressing the camera in English.
An armed guard is pictured squatting behind them in the sand, but their captors are not identified and the attack has not been claimed by any group. It was not clear when the video was shot.