Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Libyan crisis could not be solved by “military means”, after talks Sunday  with his Algerian counterpart in Algiers.

Libyan Crimes Watch (LCW) has said it had documented the kidnapping of 20 civilians in Sirte since the fall of the city in the hands of Haftar.

The French newspaper Le Monde has reported that Saudi Arabia had funded the activities of Russian Wagner mercenaries in Libya in support of Khalifa Haftar.

The United Nations said on Saturday that several countries backing rival factions in Libya have violated an arms embargo which they had agreed to uphold a week ago at a summit in Berlin.

Eastern Libya’s military commander Khalifa Haftar on Sunday sought to open a new front by moving forces towards the city of Misrata, which is allied to the internationally recognised government, officials and residents said.

Russia and Turkey have formed an alliance to exploit insolvency of the West in the Libyan crisis to pose as sponsors of a future political solution in the North African country, according to a report by French newspaper Le Monde.

A Sudanese man has called on the country’s transitional government to intervene after his brother was allegedly lured to the United Arab Emirates and forced into a military training camp, local media reported.

Libya’s oil production has plunged by about three-quarters since forces loyal to eastern military leader Khalifa Haftar began a blockade a week ago, the National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Saturday.

Turkey’s military intervention in Libya, involving the deployment of Syrian fighters, is the latest chess move in a long-running civil war that followed the 2011 revolution, the NATO-led intervention, and the overthrow of the dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Libya’s civil war threatens to spill over into the already-restive Sahel and Lake Chad regions after becoming a “playground” for foreign forces in North Africa, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.