TRIPOLI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Unknown gunmen on Friday kidnapped four foreign workers who worked in a power plant in the southern Libyan city of Obari, 1100 km south of the capital Tripoli.
The hostages include three Turks and one German.
"An armed group, at 1130 am local time, kidnapped four workers at Obari power plant project site following the workers' arrival at the site from the airport," the state-owned Libyan General Electricity Company said in a statement.
"This criminal act came at a time when the company is working hard to complete a number of projects to cover the deficit in the public power network, especially the Obari gas station project, a strategic project at its final stage," the statement said.
The company warned that the incident would "negatively affect the completion of the plant and other projects," demanding the government to "work on freeing the kidnapped workers."
A security source at the Obari Security Directorate told Xinhua earlier that two engineers of the Turkish company Enca Technik and a German expert from Siemens, were kidnapped after leaving at the Obari airport.
"Upon entering the city and leaving the airport of Obari, gunmen in two civilian cars intercepted them and took them to an unknown location," the source revealed, adding a security alert has been on in the city to track their current location.
The motive of the kidnapping is likely to be for ransom, the source said.
Libya suffers a security vacuum and chaos, where crimes of kidnapping take place in different parts of the country, particularly the south.
