TRIPOLI/TUNIS: A Tunisian diplomat kidnapped in Libya pleaded with his government to negotiate with his captors, according to a video released by a rebel group on Sunday evening.

Libyan rebels have seized two Tunisian diplomats in the past month to demand the release of fellow militants jailed in Tunisia for attacking security forces there in 2011, according to the Tunisian government.

Entitled “message of the kidnapped Tunisian diplomat Mohammed Bel Sheikh to the Tunisian government and his family” the video, published on social media, showed the diplomat crying.

“Mr President, negotiate seriously with them. I want to return to my country Tunisia,” the diplomat, who was sporting a beard, said. “They can kill me anytime.”

“Mr President, I have three young children,” he said. “Are you a father, Mr. President?“

Bel Sheikh was kidnapped a month ago, while another Tunisian diplomat was snatched in the Libyan capital last week, the latest in a series of kidnappings of diplomats in the North African country.

At the end of the video, a group called Shabab Al-Tawhid (Youth of Monotheism) added a message to the Tunisian government: “As you imprison ours we will imprison yours. As you kills ours we will kill yours.”

Neither Libyan nor Tunisian officials were immediately available for comment but the diplomat’s family confirmed it was Bel Sheikh who appeared in the five-minute video.

“The person who appeared in the video is my brother, that is sure ... we’re suffering,” his sister Samira bel Sheikh told Reuters.

“Where are the Tunisian authorities a month after his kidnapping. We haven’t seen any action or negotiations,” she said, adding that her brother had missed the birth of his youngest daughter. “Where is the president and the prime minister?”