Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shoukry on Tuesday met his Tunisian counterpart to discuss the repatriation of Egyptians fleeing Libya through the Libyan-Tunisian border, a ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Thousands of Egyptians have been fleeing Libya since Sunday, 15 February, when the Islamic State (IS) militant group released a video in which they claimed to have beheaded 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Tripoli.

Egypt launched airstrikes against alleged IS targets in Libya's eastern city of Derna, hours after the video's release.

Shoukry thanked Tunisian border officials for helping Egyptian expats who wished to return their homelands.  

The Egyptian government is facilitating the repatritation of Egyptians who had fled Libya through the Ras Jedir crossing on the Libyan-Tunisian border, through the Tunisian Djerba International Airport. 

Hundreds of Egyptians have reportedly been airlifted from the Tunisia airport, as part of the evacuation plan announced earlierby Egypt’s civil aviation minister Hossam Kamal.

Some other 13,000 Egyptians have also returned home through the Salloum crossing on the Egyptian-Libyan border, the head of the security directorate in Egypt's western governorate of Marsa Matrouh told Ahram Online on Monday.  

In his speech  to the nation on Sunday, Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed that the Egyptian army is not an aggressor and does not invade foreign territory but only responds to attacks against it, in reference to the airstrikes on 16 February in Derna.