Squatters fill Gadhafi compound for housing crisis

— Before Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster, Libyans steered well clear of the Bab al-Aziziya compound from where the dictator ruled, but a housing shortage in Tripoli has forced squatters to move in.

Satellite dishes and water tanks now fill the grounds of the once feared fortified complex in a southern suburb of the capital, as young boys kick balls and cars drive in and out of the main gate.

Much of the sprawling compound was destroyed in NATO bombardments during the 2011 uprising against Gadhafi and then rebels went on the rampage, ransacking it.

Now dozens of families have moved into the small houses once allocated to soldiers and the villas that were home to high-ranking army officers.

Bashir, 68, has been squatting in a 400-square-metre (4,300-square-foot) villa since 2012, one year after Gadhafi was captured and killed by rebels in Sirte, the coastal Mediterranean city that was his hometown.

“Hundreds of Libyans have come to live here,” he said, puffing on a cigarette.

“The villa had been set ablaze and it took me a year to renovate it, at great expense,” said Bashir. “But I’m not complaining.”

The complex, complete with bunker and a warren of underground tunnels, was Gadhafi’s home and the site from where he ruled Libya for four decades.

Built in the 1980s, it was reinforced following a U.S. air strike in 1986 in response to an attack on U.S. servicemen at a Berlin nightclub, for which Washington

held Tripoli responsible.

In its heyday, Bab al-Aziziya, which covers six square kilometers (two square miles), housed a zoo, an indoor pool, countless murals and a fairground in its gardens.

Gadhafi had expanded the grounds by knocking down adjacent neighborhoods.

After the uprising, Libyan authorities considered turning Bab al-Aziziya into a “green zone,” an amusement park or a memorial for the “martyrs” who had fallen in the conflict to oust Gadhafi.

None of those projects has materialized.

But according to information obtained by AFP, authorities are planning to turn Bab al-Aziziya into a park as part of a wider campaign to beautify Tripoli.

If so, the new residents of the once feared Gadhafi headquarters could face eviction.

“I will not leave my house,” said a man who gave his name as Hassan, declining to reveal his true identity for security reasons.

His squat “was in an appalling state, there were no doors or windows,” said Hassan, who claims to have spent the equivalent of $32,100 on repairs.

Ten years since the uprising that toppled Gadhafi’s regime, many Libyans who used to receive government grants and subsidies are struggling to make ends meet.

The oil-rich country descended into chaos after the dictator’s fall and still faces a host of political and economic crises, including chronic power cuts, petrol shortages and derelict infrastructure.