MOSCOW, February 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Ambassador to Libya Ivan Molotkov has returned to Tripoli three months after a mob attack on the embassy’s building, a senior staff member said Wednesday.
The entire embassy staff and their families – 52 people – were evacuated in October to Tunisia after a group of assailants fired shots at the embassy and attempted to break into the building, allegedly seeking revenge for the killing of a Libyan Air Force officer by a Russian woman.
“The ambassador returned to Tripoli on February 1,” said Leonid Frolov, a senior adviser at the embassy.
Some 20 staff members returned to the Libyan capital in December. They were temporarily placed at the Radisson Blue hotel and partially resumed work, Frolov said earlier.
Libya's government has officially apologized for the attack and said it was ready to pay for all damage sustained in the incident, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Libya has remained volatile in the two years since Col. Muammar Gaddafi was ousted as leader, riven by clan and tribal rivalries, and with militant Islamist groups flourishing in the absence of a strong central government.
Syrian protesters stormed the same embassy in Tripoli in February last year after Russia and China vetoed a UN draft resolution, which called for Syria's President Bashar Assad to resign over increasing violence in the country’s ongoing civil war.
The US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed when an armed Islamist mob attacked the American consulate in Benghazi in September 2012.
