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“They think because we are black, we are fighting for Gaddafi,” she said this week, afraid to give her last name. “We were hiding. We were afraid. There were gunshots and bombs.” Around her, other women — hairdressers, housekeepers, one pregnant — told the same story.
Since the uprising against Gaddafi’s 42-year-long rule began in February, many dark-skinned Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans here have feared for their lives. They have been targeted for arrests and killings, they say, because of perceptions that they colluded with the autocratic leader, who is accused of using foreign African mercenaries to mow down his opponents and counted black Libyans among his staunchest supporters.
More than 1.5 million sub-Saharan Africans are thought to work in Libya, a country of 6.5 million, according to Refugees International, most of them as day laborers in low-paid jobs. The International Organization for Migration said that it has evacuated about 1,400 migrants from the capital and that about 800 others have taken refuge in the fishing port of Janzour, just west of the city.
Driven from home
At a makeshift camp in the port, the migrants sleep under decrepit boats hung with blankets and cook in tin pots over fires. Some said they were forced out of their homes at gunpoint. Others said they ran when they lost family members or heard of friends being killed. With no money, they say, they don’t want to go home but feel that they cannot stay in Libya.
Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, said there was violence throughout the uprising against black Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans in the capital, adding that his group had confirmed Gaddafi’s use of foreign mercenaries there. The persecution, he added, was still going on.
“It really is racist violence against all dark-skinned people,” Bouckaert said. “This situation for Africans in Tripoli is dire.”
Dealing with racism that came to a head during the uprising is among the biggest challenges facing Libya’s new rebel authority as it seeks to replace Gaddafi’s repressive rule with a transparent and accountable democracy.
The rebels’ Transitional National Council has called for restraint and an end to revenge attacks, but as it struggles to gain control of the country, it has done little to curb racial persecution.
On Friday night, troops loyal to the new Libyan authority launched military offensives against two of Gaddafi’s final bastions of support, according to fighters whose relatives were participating in the assault. Fighting broke out outside Sirte, 300 miles east of Tripoli, and fighters entered the town of Bani Walid, 96 miles southeast of the capital, where three of Gaddafi’s sons are believed to be holed up. The offensives came a day earlier than the rebel-imposed deadline for the towns to surrender or fight.
