Friday, February 25, 2011

Gaddafi Crackdown Creates Ghost Town In Capital

As BBC reports, Tripoli is still quiet for the most part. Everything is still shut down and people don't really know what is happening. Many are hoping that other people - anti-government protesters and troops who have defected - will come in from the towns or cities around Tripoli, to try to help residents here achieve something.

In Fashloum, one of the poorest districts in Tripoli, people were lined up to buy bread at one of the few bakeries that have remained open. Three people were killed in a drive-by shooting.

Banks and shops remain closed. But there was a text message sent out this morning to users of two state-run mobile phone networks. It told everyone, civil servants and private workers, to go back to work.

In reaction to that text, one Tripoli resident, who works for a foreign company, said, "I don't understand how the government expects us to go back to work when there is a mass exodus of expats here and work is at a standstill because of the dangers of driving. There have been accounts of so-called pro-government protesters hijacking cars that have foreign number plates."

Another resident in Tripoli hopes the people here don't go to work. "This can be our way of peaceful protest," she said. "We all stay home, civil servants and private workers indefinitely, and let Colonel Gaddafi and his sons run a ghost city. Let's see how long they last."

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