| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa North |
| Africans fleeing Libya say they were attacked |
| 2011-03-01 |
| [Ennahar] Kenyans and Nigerians fleeing unrest in Libya said on Monday they faced attacks and hostility from Libyan citizens and officials who branded them as mercenaries supporting Muammar Qadaffy's rule. A Kenya Airways flight landed in Nairobi with 90 Kenyans on board, and 64 other people from South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Burundi, officials said. Nigeria said it had flown 1,035 of its citizens back to the capital Abuja on two chartered flights on Sunday, with about 1,000 more to follow in the coming days. "We were being attacked by local people who said that we were mercenaries killing people. Let me say that they did not want to see black people," Julius Kiluu, a 60-year-old building supervisor who arrived back in Nairobi, told Rooters. "Our camp was burned down, and we were assisted by the Kenyan embassy and our company to get to the airport." Libya's former ambassador to India, Ali-al-Essawi, told Rooters last week African mercenaries were being used by Libya to crush protests, prompting some army troops to switch sides to the opposition. Another Kenyan worker said government officials were confiscating mobile phones, tearing open bags and throwing their contents on to piles at the packed airport in Tripoli. "When they saw a black person, they immediately saw a mercenary, and if you dared use your telephone in public, it was grabbed and the SIM card removed. If your telephone was cheap you got it back, but if it was expensive it was pocketed," said Kenyan worker Francis Ndung'u. Nigerians arriving in Abuja told similar tales. "We are all slaves in the hands of the government over there," said one returnee, James Ugochuku. "Nigerians are hiding inside the bush. They don't eat, they die because if they come out, they kill them." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > POSTER Thread = apparently up to 27 Chinese contrux camps in Libyuh were attacked + looted at the onset of the protests, wid many Chinese workers also repor physically attacked or abused by the Libyan protesters. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-03-01 01:34 |