Benghazi has paid dearly for defying its leader. Residents say that at least 250 civilians died and 2,000 were injured when Gaddafi tried to put down the youth-led uprising. Security forces loyal to the government shot at demonstrators, burned them and drove over them with cars, people here said.
In the city morgue, eight charred corpses lay unclaimed and unidentified Thursday. They were found in a tunnel underneath one of the security bases.
Jalil Howeidy, head of the radiology department, said he thinks they were soldiers who were punished for disobeying orders to attack civilians. Amid the green body bags, he wept, overwhelmed by a week of carnage.
“Tell the world!” he screamed. “These are crimes against humanity.”
Inside the Jallaa Hospital, someone had left carnations on the pillows of the critically wounded. Outside, a new sign had been crafted identifying the building as the Hospital of the Martyrs.
‘Gaddafi is a flea’
Not all of those who made Benghazi’s uprising possible were civilians. Some were troops who defected.
On Wednesday, two pilots ejected from their fighter jets rather than follow orders. One of them was Capt. Abdul Salam Al Abdely.
The pilot’s father, 77-year-old Attiya Moussa el Abdely, said his son told him from his hospital bed that he had decided to ditch his plane rather than strike targets in his home town.
“My son is a hero, and Gaddafi is a flea on the Libyan citizens,” the elder Abdely said, his eyes red from weeping.
Back at the courthouse, Um Ahmed sat inside an office, the sounds of celebration from outside filling the air. But she said that she and her husband were still afraid. They fear that Gaddafi will take revenge before he falls, that without order the uprising will be hijacked and that foreign powers, specifically the United States, will not intervene until it’s too late.
“Obama is talking as if there is time,” Abu Ahmed said. “For us, today is the last day in our lives. Two to three days only means more people are going to be killed. What in the hell is the international community waiting for?”
Abu Abdul Hamid, a businessman, said the outlook for Benghazi is very simple. Now that Gaddafi is gone from the city, the people have no choice but to keep him out.
“He’ll murder us if we let him take this city back. We’ll die,” Hamid said. “It’s a point of no return.”
Loading...
Comments