This is a sequel to my previous post.
On Friday February 18 Twitter went offline early in the morning, everything else still worked. Though there were rumours of demonstrations in various part of the city I went to buy some things and it was a ghost town. Yes I know that Friday is usually quieter in Tripoli, but not this way. This felt wrong. The usual shops from which I bought groceries were closed and on the way back I ran into a pro Gaddafi group of men who were handing out flags and pictures by force by stopping the cars going in that street. There was also a group of them fighting with each other about money. So I simply turned into another street. They had guns and I was afraid that they would harm the other passengers in my car who should not be made to pay were I to reply in a less than perfect manner. The feeling of insecurity in the streets of a city I knew so much was unfamiliar and disturbing. It was something else to add to the things we needed to get used to…
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At 8 pm internet was shut down and Al Jazeera was jammed off the air. A family member abroad called and said to get the hell out of Libya if we could.
By then we were glued to TV , both ocal and foreign and I was checking regularly if internet was back. At half an hour past midnight, internet was back only to be shut down along with the mobile carrier at 1.30 am on February 19.
On Saturday February 19 we were following the news on Benghazi as many martyrs had fallen, at the same time we were listening to distant gunfire. I could not decide where it originated, but the news was also mentioning horrible things happening in Misurata.
On February 20 cell phone coverage was back and internet was sporadic in bursts. I went to the office and first thing I did was check with my friend from Misurata. He said he drove all the way from there this morning and life was normal on his side of town. So I felt relieved that maybe the Misurata news was just a rumour. A sibling called me from overseas and said Highlander this is really serious – leave Libya ASAP.
Some friends started calling me to say that foreign companies were closing and running away. There was too much tension at work and we all simply left the office early, because there were news about demonstrations and rallies in a number of areas in Tripoli.
I went to the bank to gauge the situation and I saw that people had made a run for it. Customers had withdrawn all their life savings so there was no cash left when I got there at noon. People were standing with king size luggage full of cash it was alarming. The teller informed me that I could withdraw my money in foreign currency if I wanted. That was a big tip but I did not head it, plus anyway where was I going to put this? It is very unsafe to keep cash at home and I did not need a lot just someone to keep us going for a few weeks.
So I tried another branch, and they ran out of cash too, telling me to come back tomorrow. The activity in the city was definitely abnormal with the military cars parked at various intersections and unusual aircraft activity overhead. I felt very emotional and near tears with anticipation of all that I knew was going to happen and which I had no control off.
I went to the supermarket and purchased dry food and tinned food and cat food and health and hygiene items. With hindsight that was a good decision as this was going to last the family for a couple of months. By noon sms stopped working and in the evening the mobiles and landlines were all cut. In the night we could hear distant and not so distant thuds. War had started in Libya.
On February 21 it was really unsafe to venture out of the house; we were all glued to TV. The mobiles came back but was spotty and the landline was still off. I managed to get Aljazeera on another frequency and we were moving from it to Al Arabiya back and forth incredulous at the rapidly deteriorating situation in Libya. At one point there was a breaking news messages that there were airstrikes in a number of areas in Tripoli, I got very angry because I knew for sure this was not happening and I was wondering what is the agenda behind these lies. I received frantic calls from a friend abroad saying she could not reach her family and was it true about the airstrikes. I called them and verified on her behalf that there were no airstrikes in the areas mentioned on TV.
It was also the night the neighbouring guys ran out on the street screaming that Gaddafi had ran away to Venezuela after William Hague's irresponsible statements to news channels. The guys were shouting that "we took 4 days to get rid of Gaddafi", people were celebrating on the street only to be run down soon after. The crackling sound of fire arms on our street was deafening I feared bullets would come through the windows and had the children all lying down. That was a very idiotic statement to make from Hague with regards to a country that is witnessing so much violence. I hold him responsible for many deaths in Tripoli on that evening. This was the night Saif addressed us on TV with a chilling speech about rivers of blood, a civil war etc.... (he was right in a way of course because life as we knew it had definitely ceased to exist).
Most Tripolitanians did not leave their homes from Monday 21st February until Monday 28 February, unless there was something really compelling to do outside or you were trying to demonstrate. Especially after Gaddafi's Zenga Zenga speech on February 22 and his brief appearance with the umbrella around 2 am to negate that he had run away to Venezuela. Obviously whoever tipped Hague did not know Libyans.
The mobile network was very chaotic with no sms and no coverage in certain areas, and spotty coverage in others, still this was the week I received the most international phone calls from all my friends abroad who were appalled at what was going on. I am so grateful that they insisted until they got through because that gave me hope that the world was following the tragedy unfolding in Libya. There was firefighting nightly and airplanes were still going God knew were. Facebook had stopped being accessible along with Twitter a while back. The DSL connection was dead but my Wimax was still ok. We still had satellite TV and I found other frequencies for Aljazeera. It really was not normal anymore, many people died especially on February 25 in Tripoli, when the security forces simply waited for worshippers at the mosques. On Friday 25 February we had security forces parked at each entrance to our street and near each mosque in our street. There were 3 mosques in that street, so you can imagine how many people were killed.What was worse is that we were not allowed to mourn them but only to bury them hurriedly. We could only whisper to each other who died and who was injured, we could not go and visit the bereaved families.
On Monday February 28 I ventured out of the house because I was going crazy at home. I went to visit a friend whose family was from the East to check if they were ok as we were so much worried about them there. I asked her if she saw any reported mercenaries in her street in Ben Ashur and she said no. I asked her where was the place that was bombed from the air and she confirmed there were no airstrikes. So I told her why are people on TV saying that Gaddafi did this? She told me let them lie it's ok anything to get rid of Gaddafi. I told her that damages our cause and credibility. I really was upset about that as I did not want us to lie to be listened to, Gaddafi and his regime had done so much harm that we did not need this to prove how evil they were.
On March 1, I got a call from an unknown number and a woman was screaming at the other end begging for mercy and saying she was a respectable mother and to please leave her alone. I was very frightened as I did not know who it was and what was happening. I tried calling that number afterwards and it was always out of coverage. There is no way to find the owner of the number without getting myself in danger but maybe now I can do that ? I will try. Wimax was credited by LTT for free with one month worth of internet but the connection was touch and go. This was also the day my best friend gave me the tip for the proxy to use Facebook and Twitter.
