Tunisian government 'giving up' on journalists missing in Libya

Relatives of two Tunisian journalists who disappeared in Libya almost 18 months ago protested on Tuesday to demand more cooperation from the Tunisian government about their fate.

Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari went missing in September 2014 after they travelled to north-eastern Libya to report on the state of lucrative oil facilities in the region.

The Islamic State group later claimed to have killed them.

But in September last year, Tunisia's then foreign minister Taieb Baccouche said the pair were still alive. Since then no information about their fate has surfaced.

"This marks a year and five months since the disappearance of Nadhir and Sofiene... We're here to put pressure on the government because clues indicate that they are still alive," Chourabi's father Sami said.

The families of both men, along with supporters and a local representative of Reporters Without Borders, gathered in front of the parliament building in the capital Tunis on Tuesday morning and explained their plans to  travel to Libya to find out more about the men’s fate.

"We're asking for the minimum... We have drawn up a plan to go to Libya and meet tribal leaders but they (Tunisian authorities) have not even looked at our project,” Sami Chourabi told AFP.

"We're waiting, hope is still here," he added.

Protesters held up portraits of the journalists and banners that read: "We are all Sofiene, We are all Nadhir."

According to the regional representative of Reporters Without Borders, Yasmine Kacha, Ktari's parents are expected to be received Wednesday by foreign ministry officials.

“Continual public pressure is the only thing that will push the Tunisian authorities not to give up on  these journalists and their families,” Kacha said during Tuesday’s demonstration.

Chourabi, an investigative journalist and blogger who was active during Tunisia's 2011 revolution, went missing along with photographer Ktabi in the Ajdabiya district of north-eastern Libya.

Though Islamic State claimed to have killed them in January, then-foreign minister Baccouche said in September that he had "irrefutable proof" that Chourabi and Ktari "are alive".

"We are trying to bring them back to Tunisia," he said at the time, with no development since.