Libyan pro-democracy protesters both inside and outside the country are using social media to spread the word of what they say are brutal crackdowns by the Libyan regime. They cite numerous accounts of mercenaries roaming Benghazi and other cities with orders to kill.
People contacted by AllAfrica say that the number of casualties is far higher than is being reported by news agencies and human rights groups. Human Rights Watch said yesterday that more than 80 people had been killed in clashes across the country.
"It's understandable, really," said Libyan American student Tariq Mohamed. "It's difficult for media and human rights groups to operate and get independent confirmation, but I'm in touch with people who say there have been more than 90 deaths today alone in Benghazi."
The port city has been a focus of anti-government protests in recent days. British Foreign Secretary William Hague today issued a statement condemning Libyan authorities for what he called "unacceptable and horrifying" attacks on protesters, using "heavy weapons fire and a unit of snipers."
Mohammed, a taxi driver in Benghazi, contacted by telephone, said he fears for his two young children. The sounds of gunfire persisted through the evening. "It's not just shooting," he said. "It's shells."
He lived for nearly two decades in the United States but returned to Libya because Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi promised change. He did not keep that pledge, Mohammad said. He struggles to feed his family, he said, in a country that is wealthy.
He said that he has family members on the streets and does not know what has happened to them. They had reported being assaulted by "foreigners" when they tried to protest peacefully. "It's crazy," he said. "We are in a desperate situation. We have no arms to protect ourselves. We need protection from international organizations."
Tariq Mohamed said the reports on Twitter and Facebook of a massive crackdown are credible. He described talking on the telephone to a contact in Libya who suddenly said, "Hold on. Hold on. Listen!" Mohamed said that he could hear the shooting – "it sounded almost like explosions" – through the telephone.
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He said he doesn't sleep at night for fear of what is happening to family members, many of whom have fled from Benghazi. His contacts, he said, have confirmed the many reports that the Libyan government is using mercenaries flown in from outside the country to try to quell the uprising.
A number of sources in recent days have identified some of the attackers of protesters as being from Chad, and unconfirmed reports say others have been flown in by the government from Bangladesh and Korea. "It is despicable," Mohamed said, "to not only kill your own people, but to pay the wealth of the country to incentivize others to ruthlessly and mercilessly attack them."
Tariq Mohamed and others who are relentlessly pelting social media with ongoing messages say they have been frustrated for many years at the lack of international media or policy attention to the situation in Libya. "Unfortunately," he said, "it took the disaster of a totalitarian regime mowing down its citizens to get world to bat an eye."
