A bomb exploded outside a television station in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi late on Thursday evening, damaging a wall but causing no injuries, an employee said.

The blast also created a large whole in the ground outside the Libya al-Hurra TV channel. Security officials were sent to secure the area.

“We just heard a loud explosion and came outside to see. The front gate is damaged.

“We believe it was a bomb,” the employee said, adding that it was unclear how the attack was carried out.

In October, dozens of demonstrators stormed and ransacked the station’s headquarters, protesting coverage of clashes in a former stronghold of ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

In a statement this week, the campaign group Reporters Without Borders said it was “extremely concerned about the deteriorating security situation in Libya and the behaviour of certain militias towards media personnel. “Journalists have repeatedly been attacked, threatened or kidnapped by militias in recent months,” the statement said.

Benghazi was the cradle of the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi and has now become a hot spot for violence. At least 31 people were killed and 100 wounded in clashes between protesters, eventually backed by government forces, and a militia last Saturday.

On Wednesday, a senior Libyan army officer survived a gun attack outside his home, officials said, the latest in a wave of violence against security officials in the city.