Still struggling six years on
The downfall of Muammar Qaddafi and end to his decades-long rule was supposed to make life in Libya better, but for the residents of Tripoli, the reality is power and water cuts, a cash crunch, dizzying price rises and streets that ring with gunfire
TRIPOLI // Six years after the start of an uprising that toppled a dictator, Libyans in Tripoli see no reason to celebrate.
Power cuts, exorbitant prices and insecurity plague their daily lives. At a moment’s notice, shopkeepers in the Libyan capital pull down their shutters, cars make sudden U-turns and gunshots ring out in the empty street.
“We’re living at the mercy of men obsessed with weapons, violence and profit,” says Abdelalim Al Hajj Ali, as he and his daughter hide inside a bakery.
“The situation in our country is dramatic,” the 48-year-old teacher says as fighting rages in one of the capital’s shopping streets outside.
Libyans will today mark the anniversary of the revolt that ended Muammar Qaddafi’s decades-long rule.
They say living conditions have deteriorated in the year since a United Nations- backed unity government started working in the capital. The Government of National Accord (GNA) has also failed to assert its authority across the rest of the oil-rich country.
“It’s tiresome to see Libyans living in the dark, poverty and constant fear when there’s a sea of oil in their country’s belly,” Mr Ali says.
From inside the bakery, Mr Ali and his daughter can hear gunfire and the screeching tyres of the fighters’ pickups armed with anti-aircraft guns.
Tripoli has been controlled by dozens of armed groups since Qaddafi’s fall, and it is often hard for residents to follow their fluctuating loyalties and who they are fighting.
Armed groups display stickers on their vehicles according to their current interests, usually mentioning an official body – such as the army or interior ministry – to give themselves some legitimacy.
Clashes have been regular features of life in the Libyan capital since 2011, and checkpoints have spread across the city.
While traffic jams are a normal scenario for Libyans living in the capital, driving across Tripoli can be dangerous, especially at night.
To help each other out, Libyans have started swapping information about safe routes on social media.
“The Ghot Ashaal road isn’t safe. An armed criminal gang is stealing cars,” one user writes on a Facebook group dubbed Safe Path, which has more than 20,000 followers.
“Exchange of gunfire on the Al Madar road,” says another user. “Brief truce but expect a second half-time.”
As if security was not enough to worry about, Libyans in the capital have also been hit by daily power and water cuts, dizzying price rises and a cash crunch. In the long queues outside banks, people are on edge and arguments break out for the smallest of reasons.
Mariam Abdallah, 50, says she had hoped life in the capital would improve after the GNA started work in March last year.
“We thought things could not get any worse but they have,” says the travel agency employee.
She lists longer power cuts, water and gas shortages, fuel queues, hyperinflation and a continuing cash crisis “which have literally handicapped the city. People are exhausted and depressed”, she says. “The anniversary of the revolution is nearing and people have no cause to celebrate.” Tarek Megirissi, a Libyan political analyst, is similarly downbeat. “Despite Libya’s oil output recovering, the economic situation remains dire with basic goods growing more scarce and expensive, alongside a worsening liquidity crisis,” he says.
“Services are collapsing, and no political body seems capable of governing the country and instead are preoccupied with jostling for absolute power.”
A former administration tried and failed to seize three ministries in the capital in January, while a parliament in the country’s far east has refused to cede power to the unity government. But UN envoy Martin Kobler has said talks had made progress on “possible amendments” to the deal that created the GNA, notably on the future role of a rival army chief who backs the parliament in the east.
Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose forces control much of eastern Libya, was not included in the GNA’s original line-up. In a queue for the bank in Tripoli, however, Selma Fathi, a 53-year-old housewife, is optimistic.
“I have great hope of seeing Libya rise up again thanks to its youth,” she says.