Tripoli, 20 April 2013:
Madagascar is going to close its embassy in Libya because of costs.
"Keeping the embassy working has a significant financial impact on the public purse and it is advisable to close it temporarily," said a Madagascan cabinet statement on Wednesday.
Most staff at the embassy were evacuated to Tunisia in June 2011, during the revolution. However, the ambassador, an accountant and a translator stayed on until a year ago when the ambassador was appointed elsewhere.
The accountant and the translator have since run the embassy in Al-Hani district.
It was opened in Tripoli in 2005 when the Madagascan former minister of higher education, Dieudonne Marie Michel Razafindrandriatsimaniry, was appointed Ambassador to Libya.