BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - Islamic State militants have killed six people captured during an attack on a small town in central Libya in October, The U.N. mission to Libya said.
The U.N. statement late Monday condemned the killing as “particularly abhorrent,” without providing further details.
The six were captured on Oct. 28 during an attack on the town of al-Fuqaha, located south of the coastal city of Sirte, a former IS-held bastion.
At least four people, including the mayor’s son and two policemen, were killed in the attack, in which the militants torched the local police station along with two houses.
The attack underscored the volatility of Libya’s central region, where IS and other armed groups, including some from neighboring Chad, operate as highway robbers or attack patrols of the self-styled Libyan National Army.
The U.N. mission also denounced the shutdown of one of Libya’s largest oilfields by an armed group.
The state-owned National Oil Corporation imposed a “force majeure” Sunday on exports from the el-Sharara oilfield after local gunmen impersonating guards seized control of the facility.
The U.N. said forced shutdown, if sustained, will result in a production loss of 388,000 barrels a day out of Libya’s current output of one million barrels per day.
It called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the armed men from the area.
Libya was plunged into chaos after the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi and is now governed by rival administrations in the east and west. Armed groups which have seized oil facilities in the past, often to demand political or economic concessions from authorities.
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