A general view of security in front of the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli January 25, 2014 (Photo: Reuters)
Egypt said on Sunday it was deeply concerned about violence targeting its citizens in Libya, hours after an Egyptian was shot in Benghazi amid growing Islamist violence in the city.
Salama Fawzy was shot by a gunman while at a grocer's in the city's Magoury area, Egypt's foreign ministry said in a Sunday statement, adding that the victim was hospitalised in a "highly critical condition."
"Egypt is following, with strong dissatisfaction and deep concern, the recurrent violence against Egyptians in Libya, the latest of which is Sunday's heinous crime," the ministry said
Egypt has asked the Libyan authorities to open an investigation into the "heinous terrorist incident" and to inform it of the results, added the statement.
Since the 2011 revolution that ousted autocrat Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan authorities have struggled to hold back brigades of former rebels and Islamist militias who have easy access to weaponry.
The incident on Sunday came a week after seven Egyptian Christians were found shot dead execution-style in Benghazi, eastern Libya.
In a separate attack on Sunday, gunmen killed a Frenchman in Benghazi, an incident the French foreign ministry condemned as "odious and cowardly."
In January, five Egyptian diplomats were kidnapped in the capital Tripoli in retaliation for Egypt's arrest of a Libyan militia chief.
Earlier in the month, a British man and a New Zealand woman were shot execution-style on a beach southwest of Tripoli.
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians work in Libya, mostly as labourers, but the number has sharply diminished three years after the uprising.
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