SUNDAY 4 AUGUST 2019

The secret network risking

death to end Libya’s war

Damage caused by years of conflict, seen from Benghazi lighthouse (Reuters)

BORZOU DARAGAHI

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT

A network of Libyan activists in the country’s east opposed to warlord Khalifa Haftar’s months-long
offensive to seize the capital, Tripoli, has emerged; evidence that the civil society idealists who originally
began the 2011 uprising against the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi persist, even if they are often
cowering in fear.

Ahmed Sharksi, a 29-year-old activist and petroleum engineer now living in exile in Tunisia, is one of the
coordinators of the Society for Civic Cooperation, a largely secret network of activists in eastern Libyan
cities including Benghazi, Ajdabiya and Beida – the cities that make up the ancient Roman province of
Cyrenaica. They oppose both Haftar’s militaristic vision and the Islamist-leaning armed groups he is
fighting.

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