One of Libya’s most prominent female politicians has been abducted from her home in Benghazi by an armed militia, according to her family, and has not been heard from for three days.
Seham Sergewa, a women’s rights activist and a rare independent voice in Libya, was taken from her home on Wednesday, family members have told CNN, by a militia loyal to the leader of the Libyan National Army, Khalifa Haftar.
An elected member of the House of Representatives, she’d been critical of the LNA’s assault on the capital, Tripoli.
According to family members, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, more than a dozen masked and armed men arrived at Sergewa’s’s home at about 2 a.m. on Wednesday. One family member identified the men as part of a militia called the 106th Brigade, also known as Awlia Aldem.
As they searched for Sergewa, the family member said they shot her husband in the legs and beat up one of her sons. Both men are still in hospital, according to family members.
As they left the house, they sprayed graffiti on the walls — including the group’s name and a warning in Arabic: “Don’t cross the line of the armies.”
Sergewa’s family has told CNN they have no idea where she is being held and that no one has been permitted to visit her husband and son in hospital. The militia confiscated their mobile phones, family members said.
CNN has been unable to reach any official with the militia or Haftar’s Libyan National Army for comment on the abduction.
The masked men shot her husband in the legs, a family member said.
Sergewa’s abduction has drawn widespread condemnation. The Tripoli-based government said it was a “natural consequence of the absence of law and the lack of public freedoms in the area controlled by the military leader and his supporters.”
It called for “the urgent intervention of the United Nations and international organisations” to bring about her release and to “hold the perpetrators — as well as those responsible for the security of the city of Benghazi — to account.”
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has also demanded Sergewa’s immediate release.
