MISRATA: Sundus El-Sayyed once led a calm life in Libya working as a physics teacher. Now this Egyptian woman is stuck with her husband and son in a dirty tent camp in the besieged city of Misrata.
“This tent is like my prison. The toilet is very bad, there is no medicine. This is a very bad situation,” said Sayyed, 45, one of some 7,000 people from every part of Africa camped out in field tents and under plastic sheets.
At night the refugees from Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Sudan light campfires to warm themselves. In the day, they queue for the little water and food available from a handful of Libyan Red Crescent officials.
“Why has Egypt not sent any ships? Why has the United Nations not sent any ships?” asked Sayyed, as hundreds clamoured around her asking for help and for a phone to be able to call loved ones who have not heard from them for weeks.
Sayyed said she put her daughter, an agronomy student, on one Egyptian ship that did come before the conflict escalated last month. There was only one place left on the boat. “She has her whole life ahead of her,” said the mother.
The camp stretches out along roads near a large steel plant in the port of Misrata, 215 kilometres east of Tripoli, and is informally divided up according to nationality.
Libyan rebel fighters carrying daggers and guns man checkpoints near the camp.
“There’s been a lot of gunfire here. There was a Libyan man who threatened us because we are blacks. We just want to go home,” said Mohammed Ibrahim, 27, a Ghanaian steelworker in the once busy commercial centre.
“We have nothing to do with this war. We just want to leave,” he said.
Many in the opposition say that much of the fighting by pro-Qadhafi forces is being carried out by mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa, and the shadow of suspicion has fallen on the huge numbers of migrants who were living in Libya.
But many refugees also say they are alive thanks to food provided by the people of Misrata — who are themselves suffering severe shortages in the west Libya city that has been besieged by Qadhafi’s forces for more than 40 days.
“We’ve been here 20 days. There are around 500 of us Ghanaians. We haven’t washed. We badly need help,” said Ibrahim, who has been in Libya for two years.
“We tried to leave to go Tripoli but the local people turned us back. I don’t know why. It’s very dangerous for us here,” he said.
Apart from occasional aid shipments, the nearby port is at a standstill.
“I haven’t spoken to my family in 22 days. I’ve finished my money. I couldn’t pick up my salary because the bank is closed,” said Mohammed Mauad, 30, from Egypt, one of many waving their passports in the hope of getting help.
“Some Libyans came and stole our money. It’s a terrible situation,” he said.
Another Egyptian, 50-year-old Jamal Mohammed, a carpenter, said: “They are still bombing here. We are waiting for the Egyptian government to come.
Qadhafi’s militia came to my home. They stole all my money and the gold in the house.”
Among the thousands is Abdelsalam Boudyelida, an Algerian man living in a tent with his Egyptian wife and two children, who said he missed the last boat to evacuate refugees from Misrata by only a few hours.
“We couldn’t go to the port because there was shelling where we were living,” said Boudyelida, 55, who owned a small paints business in Misrata with 15 Libyan employees who have all now fled the city.
He said: “I had a house before. Now I sleep on the ground.”
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