Due to being disconnected from the world for about 6-7 months, I was not able to post/share things on the internet. So, I'm just going to write about stuff that happened during that time.
The no-fly zone was declared on the 17th of March, and I believe that we were all thankful for that. My Grandmother wanted to invite us for traditional Libyan food the next day to celebrate, I guess.
We were all happy about that UNTIL THAT evening.
We came home from my Nan's place and the rest of the afternoon I spent napping and being lazy. I woke up in the evening at around 8pm only to hear the dreadful news of Gaddafi's forces just being 50KM from Benghazi!!!! I immediately went into panic-mode, tears were flowing down my cheeks, and my mom was telling me it was going to be okay. Pffttt, is it really? they were coming to attack the city I live in, that's not something to just easily take in, plus we live on the outskirts of Benghazi, NEAR the Benghazi check-point.
My dad told me to pack all my valuable things, I hurried to my room, packed my laptop, phone, camera, chargers, ALL of my clothes :) and I hid all my anti-Gaddafi posters and banners, just in case. My parents packed their laptops, and paper work and all that important stuff. We locked up the house, got in the car, and we got a call from the Turkish consulate, telling us that we could stay with them for safety, but my dad thought it was best to go over to my Grandmothers place. On our way into the city, there were these BIG trucks, and loads of men, and weapons, and tanks and all that heavy aircraft stuff, the fighters were driving towards the outskirts of the city, I kinda feel calm when I saw all these men wanting to protect their city.
So, later that night, my uncle was listening to the radio, and they said there were no pro-Gaddafi troops coming to Benghazi, and it was all a rumor. You want to know what we did next? We drove back home. Stupid, I know.
But my mom is attached to being in her house, so she wanted to go back home, and thats what we did.
We arrived home at around 1AM. My parents went to their room, and I stayed up watching TV and hearing faint bomb-like sounds and shooting, around 3AM all of that was getting louder and stronger, I ran upstairs to my parents room, to ask what in the world is going on, my dad said it was nothing and I should go to sleep. So, I go back downstairs, and get in bed, and try to do some cross-words to kill time, because I couldn't sleep. I look at the time, at it's 6AM, and the whole time I was up, the shooting and bombing was getting louder and louder, my eyes were kinda feeling heavy, and I sort of fell asleep, but somehow I was still aware of what was going on outside, I could even feel my window shake above me, and the vibrations running through the walls, floor, my bed and my body. I hear someone banging on my door, and I get up in an instant, My dad was telling me come out because we had to leave again.
Oh my God, I thought, what the world is going on in my life! We locked the house, and left again.
Only this time, the streets were empty, and there was one truck on the side of the road, and the guy inside told us to get out of here as quickly as possible.
The sky was blue, with a few white clouds. It was 7.18AM, yes I still remember. Then we hear three grad missiles being launched into the air above us, and I look up into the sky thinking $%^#&*! we're going to die!!
My dad just floors it and we were out of our neighborhood in just minutes.
We go back later that day, and this was the state our house was in:
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| this is all we could see from my grandmothers house. |
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| this is when we were getting closer to my neighborhood. |
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| that's Tripoli Road. |
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| that's right outside of my house! |
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| that's our gate, i have no idea how they were able to dent it, and break the chain. |
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| my mom's car, i guess we had to leave it behind. |
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| mom's car again. |
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| okay, obviously, they tried to hot wire the car. |
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| but that was an epic fail, because the car is automatic. bit hard to hot wire an automatic car :) |
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| living room window looking inside. |
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| living room window looking outside. |
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| family room sliding door. |
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| broken glass. |
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| family room. |
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| dining room drawers. |
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| parent's closet. |
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| i find this pretty funny, i guess they took a bite out of the apple and left it behind. |
So, basically, they've searched through our house, not too much damage, but I felt extremely violated, and it was pretty hard for me to settle in my OWN home when we got back.
However, I feel much more secure now, cause we put up metal bars all around the house, cause our house is all windows, and sliding glass doors, so it's easy to break in.
I'm thankful, that nothing major got stolen, and not too much damage happened. But I must say, my neighbors weren't so lucky, I went over to their place, and there was a bloodbath over there. These pictures are NOT pretty:
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| dried up blood. |
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| :/ |
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| :( there used to be a couch under that window, TV melted as you can see on the left side. |
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| Neighbors bedroom. |
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| more blood. |
I've seen a video that was taken in this house before all the bodies were removed. I can't really describe the scene of carnage I saw. It was gruesome, it was very ugly.
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dad collecting bullet shells.
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| bullets and bullet shells we collected on that day. |
and here are some more pictures of Tripoli Road that day:
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| I was told, that some of the mercenaries came in big buses like this one. |
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| poor family :( i hope they weren't there. |
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can you believe that his was a pharmacy?
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Well, I guess that's all. I guess I should say Hamdulillah (thank God), some people have it worse than this. 19th March 2011, I'll never forget this day.
