On the morning of Sept. 3, 2011, my family and I headed to Belgium via Tunisia by car, leaving everything behind in Libya. NATO-assisted rebels had just entered Tripoli and the Gadhafi regime was about to fall. The revolution had prevailed, Moammar Gadhafi would be killed in his hometown of Sirte on Oct. 20 and Libya was supposedly “liberated” from his dictatorship.
My three children attended the only French school in Tripoli, which had already closed by then with no plans to reopen anytime soon. Going to Belgium made sense, as at least the children could go to school there while I pondered what to do. A few days before leaving, I visited Bab al-Azizia barracks just south of Tripoli on the way to the airport to have a look at what had happened to Gadhafi’s home and office compound. It was a horrific experience, and I later regretted having gone. Bodies were scattered everywhere, and the place was destroyed by sustained aerial bombardment. What remained was being looted or destroyed by rebels who just got there. Gadhafi’s famous tent was still standing — and being emptied.
