

Egypt has offered to evacuate thousands of its citizens from Libya after Islamic State (Isis) released pictures showing 21 kidnapped Egyptian Christians paraded in orange jumpsuits.

Egypt said it had no choice but take urgent measures on Friday with Isis expanding fast across Libya, its war-stricken neighbour. “We are helping them,” Cairo’s foreign ministry spokesman, Badr Abdelatty, said. “If they would like to come back from Libya, we are facilitating their return to their home country.”

The Coptic Christian guest workers were kidnapped in Sirte, on Libya’s coast, by Isis units based there in two operations in December and January.



There have been demonstrations in Cairo by families calling for their release, but the government says it has had problems making contact with the abductors. “There should have been more attempts by the government to intervene,” Hanna Aziz, a fellow worker who escaped the Sirte kidnappings, said. “We are all Egyptians, regardless of our religion.”

Photographs showing the men paraded by black-clad gunmen were published this week in Dabiq, an Isis online magazine, with several recognised by relatives.



A relative of one of the kidnapped men sits crying in front of a banner featuring pictures of the workers. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

The militant group has expanded rapidly across Libya, its ranks bolstered by the arrival of foreign fighters from across the Middle East, triggering fears Libya’s war will spill over its borders.



The magazine depicts the handcuffed men walking and kneeling in a style reminiscent of photographs showing western hostages in orange jumpsuits in Iraq and Syria. Isis says the kidnappings are in response to the alleged killing of two women in Egypt.



If they would like to come back from Libya, we are facilitating their return to their home country Badr Abdelatty, Cairo's foreign ministry spokesman

“This month, the soldiers of the Khilāfah in Wilāyat Tarābulus (Caliphate State Tripolitania) captured 21 Coptic crusaders, almost five years after the blessed operation against the Baghdad church executed in revenge for Kamilia Shehata, Wafa Constantine, and other sisters who were tortured and murdered by the Coptic Church of Egypt,” according to the report in the magazine.



Publication of the photographs caused shock in the small Egyptian village of El Aor, home to many of the abductees. “It was a dark day in the village. Everyone was crying,” Mina Thabet, from the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, said.

Before civil war broke out in the summer, an estimated 1 million Egyptians worked in Libya, but numbers have shrunk as fighting continues between Libya Dawn rebels in Tripoli and the recognised government which has fled to Tobruk.



Egypt, which like most states has withdrawn its diplomats, will face logistical problems organising an evacuation. Cairo is a key backer for government forces, which may complicate requests to fly to Libya Dawn-held airports at Sirte, Tripoli and Misrata.



Isis, a third side in the civil war, has clashed with both government and Libya Dawn units, launching a suicide attack last month on a Tripoli hotel that killed nine, including a US security contractor.



The shoreline location of the hostage photographs is a reminder to some observers that while Isis is landlocked in Syria and Iraq, it has three coastal Libyan bases, raising the possibility of strikes across the Mediterranean at Europe.

