Hundreds of employees working for oil firms in Benghazi, Libya, have embarked on a strike action, it emerged on Tuesday, as the security situation in the troubled North African country worsened.

The striking oil workers belong to oil companies like Gas Processing Company and Ras Lanuf Oil, Arabian Gulf Co, and two units of Libya’s National Oil Corp (NOC), a Reuters report stated.

Workers who started the labour action on Tuesday joined the civil servants that had already been on strike, protesting against the worsening security situation in the troubled North African country.

At the top of the oil workers’ and civil servants’ list of demands is that private armies that wander Benghazi, which is located east of Libya, vacate the city with immediate effect.

“Staff in the oil sector in Benghazi… will join the civil disobedience starting today,” Saad Fakhri, deputy head of Libya’s union of oil workers, confirmed this to Reuters.

Militias have allegedly demanded higher pay and more political rights, putting to a stop oil exports out of the country.

It is understood that about nine Libyans were murdered yesterday as conflict between the military and Islamist radicals in Libya’s second biggest city spiralled out of control in the past couple of months.

It is believed that armed Islamist radicals wander around the city unrestricted, with the government battling to call to order armed groups that deposed the late former president Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-supported revolt about 36 months ago.