Measures taken to retrieve martyrs’ bodies from Libya

CAIRO – 8 October 2017: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs coordinates with the Coptic Orthodox Church to take the necessary procedures for retrieving and burying the bodies of the Egyptian Copts killed in Libya in 2015, according to the assistant Foreign Minister for Consular Affairs and Egyptians Abroad Khaled Yousri Rizk.

The Egyptian embassy in Libya is coordinating with Libyan authorities to follow the investigations with the Islamic State (IS) members involved in killing 21 Copts, and to accelerate the measures of transferring their bodies to Egypt, added Rizk.



Chief of Investigations at the Libyan Public Prosecution, Al-Sadiq Al-Sour, said on Friday, September 29, that the burial place of the 20 Coptic laborers and one Ghanaian beheaded by IS in 2015 has been identified. Their bodies will be exhumed and delivered to their families with the cooperation of Egyptian authorities.

This comes in the aftermath of the Libyan authorities’ announcement that they had captured one of the militants involved in the crime: the cameraman who videotaped the beheading that took place behind Mahary Hotel west of Sirte.



The militant gave Libyan authorities all the details about the Islamic State militants that beheaded the Copts, said Sour during a press conference in Tripoli on September 28.