Libya Turns Back Egyptians Over Work Visas

Hundreds of Egyptian workers have been refused entry to Libya over the past 48 hours because their visas were not valid, a spokesman at Tripoli's Miitiga airport said Saturday.

"Around 800 Egyptians were turned away. They all had non-compliant visas," the spokesman told AFP.

He added that "no work visas have been issued since June."

Witnesses at the airport said only Egyptians appeared to be affected by the measure.

"Other nationalities have been allowed in with no problem," they said.

But the spokesman said "this measure applies to all nationalities. Egyptians are not themselves being targeted."

Since the end of August, Tripoli and a large part of western Libya have been under the control of Fajr Libya, an Islamist-led militia alliance that defeated its rivals in deadly fighting over the country's main civilian airport in the south of the city.

That facility was badly damaged in the battle and has been closed ever since. Civilian flights by Libyan airlines have since resumed from Miitiga military air base.

Fajr Libya, which has installed a parallel regime in Tripoli to the government elected in June and which sits in the city of Tobruk in the east, has accused Cairo of backing its rivals and bombarding its positions in August.

Egypt has denied attacking Fajr Libya positions.