MINYA, Feb 17 (Aswat Masriya) - The 21 men whose beheading by armed militants in Libya was captured on a video released Sunday night are believed to include only 20 Egyptians, a Minya church official said.

Bishop Estifanios Shehata, a deputy of the diocese of Samalout in Minya, told Aswat Masriya the diocese prepared a list with the names of those killed by militants in Libya and that they only included 20 names.   

An official at the United Nations' media office in Cairo also told Aswat Masriya that only 20 Coptic Egyptians were beheaded by Libyan militants, citing the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The official added that the 21st abductee who was beheaded in the video was a Christian African national.

The official said the UN High Commissioner's office is yet to verify the identity of the 21st abductee who appeared in the video. 

A statement released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Tuesday said that "20 Egyptian Coptic Christians and apparently another Christian man" were beheaded in Libya.

Twenty Coptic Egyptians were abducted in the Libyan city of Sirte on two separate occasions, only one week apart. Seven were kidnapped on December 31, 2014, while the remaining 13 were captured on January 3.

The abductees were beheaded in a video released late Sunday, by a militant group believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq titled "a message signed with blood to the nation of the cross." 

The video shows 21 abductees in orange jumpsuits before beheading them, with subtitles describing them as "the people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian church."

Egypt launched airstrikes in Libya on Monday in response to the beheadings. The Egyptian military said in a statement the strikes targeted training sites and weapons and ammunition storage sites belonging to Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, located inside Libya.