The airport road camp, some 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Tripoli, is home to 355 families totaling more than 1,800 people — a third of whom are children. Of these people, 350 are from the stricken town of Tawergha and the rest are families displaced from the capital as their homes were damaged in the 2011 civil war and are still not repaired.

The overwhelming majority of the camp residents are black Libyans who used to live in the coastal town of Tawergha, less than 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Misrata. The town of an estimated 35,000 residents was almost completely destroyed during the war, and in the final days of the regime, its entire population — accused of supporting regime forces — was forced to flee.

Mabruk Eswesi, founder and chairman of al-Saber (Patience) Association, told Al-Monitor, “We had to leave because we were fired at indiscriminately. Anyone captured could be killed on the spot or taken into detention. Misrata militias were seeking brutal revenge, accusing the entire population of supporting the former regime.”

Sensing the troubles ahead for his community, one already tagged as Moammar Gadhafi supporters, Eswesi and his friends set up al-Saber to keep people together and give them a “voice in dealing with the situation they have found themselves in.”