(FRANKS..)
(CNN)ISIS
kidnapped about 20 medical workers with the Ibn Sina Hospital in Sirte,
Libya, on Monday during an attack on the facility, according to a
hospital official.
A group of
more than 30 gunmen from the Islamic State attacked the hospital while a
bus was waiting to take the workers, who are not Libyan, to the capital
of Tripoli.
Most of the abductees are
from the Philippines. Others are from Ukraine, India and Serbia, said
the hospital official. The official believes the ISIS gunmen didn't
want the staff to leave the city because they are the only medical team
there if they needed them for the group's wounded and injured.
Sirte
lies halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi. The city was the final major
stronghold of Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in the Libyan civil war.
Gadhafi was killed there.
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ISIS
took control of the city late last year, including the hospital. The
group claimed responsibility for the slaughter of 21 Egyptian Coptic
Christians in the country about two months ago.
The
hospital staff members who were kidnapped were trying to leave the city
because of the security situation and the control of ISIS over the
city, the official said.