TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Three Turkish engineers kidnapped last year in the southern Libyan town of Ubari have been released, the U.N.-backed Libyan government said.

In November, an unknown armed group kidnapped four engineers, three from Turkey and one from South Africa. The engineers were working for the Turkish company Enka on a 640 MW power plant in Ubari deep in Libya’s south.

The fate of the South African is not known.

“The three Turkish engineers have been released,” the Tripoli-based government said in a statement, adding that they would be flown back to Turkey via Tripoli.

They were released on Saturday.

Kidnapping is rife in Libya, especially in the lawless south. Work at the Ubari plant has been going on for years and was in the final stages when the kidnapping happened.

A week after the four engineers were kidnapped the firm evacuated 93 of its staff from Libya.

Work on the power plant has stopped since that time, a blow to efforts to lure back foreign firms.

Most foreign companies have shied away from working in Libya because of security problems following the NATO-backed toppling of Muammer Qaddafi in 2011.