Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat. Alex Crawford

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СКАЧАТЬ know what it’s like to be under attack from this massive military machine. Shit, I think, I’ve got to tell people about this. I’ve got to tell whoever will listen how no one here had a chance. My phone is still working. I’m clutching it, gripping it in my hand. They’ve got their weapons. This is mine. I’ve got to get this news on air.

      I make continuous phone calls to London. They can hear the explosions in the background throughout but I don’t think they realize just how close everything is, how much danger we are in. Sometimes the explosions are so loud I can barely hear the questions from the presenter.

      ‘Where are they from?’ Mark Longhurst asks. ‘Are the soldiers from the Khamis Brigade?’ I realize I have no idea. I can’t get out. Most of the time I can’t get out of this storeroom. There are bullets flying everywhere. Everyone in the storeroom is in a state of frozen fear. We’re just waiting for what feels inevitable.

      Suddenly the metal door of the storeroom is flung open and there’s shouting as a man in Gaddafi uniform is dragged in. He is screaming in agony. He can’t walk. His ankles have been blown apart. He’s dropped in front of us. There is no more room. We are all perching on the grain sacks and some of us are on the floor and he is lying there taking up the rest of the space. A doctor is trying to calm the crowd outside, trying to shut the door on them. They’re furious and frightened too. They want to lynch the prisoner. The soldier knows it and the doctor is the one person who can save him from an immediate and violent death. The doctor calls me to stand at the door. ‘Show them your face,’ he says. Then he says to the men clamouring outside: ‘Look, we have a woman in here and other foreigners. Stop this.’ There’s a bit of angry discussion, but they go away, back to battle. There’s still much to be done. Fighting is still raging outside.

      The Gaddafi soldier is sobbing, making an awful noise as the medics rig up a drip and start injecting him with painkillers. They are trying to wipe his ankles. There are just holes where once there used to be bone and they are pouring liquid on the wounds to clean off the mess. He screams from the pain as they do it. They keep telling him to be quiet, to be brave. We are all just looking at this man writhing in agony in front of us, this man who until a few minutes ago was part of an army which is still trying to kill us all. I ask the doctors if they will put a few questions to him on my behalf, and they agree. The soldier has Khamis Brigade ID and says he came in with fifty tanks from different directions to attack the town. They have surrounded Zawiya, he says. ‘We were told there was Al Qaeda here,’ he adds, ‘but I can see you are Libyans and good people.’ He is Libyan too and pleading for his life now. He knows his only chance of survival is within the control of these people treating him.

      The young lad next to me is sitting on his haunches, his head in his hands. He is still sobbing quietly. He looks just like the child he is now. I start filming him and then am immediately disgusted at my actions. Jesus, have you no heart, Alex? I reach out and touch him, hug him. I think how my own son would feel. What is he thinking now? Does he know what is happening out here to his mum? The young lad doesn’t know me but responds. He seems comforted by this human touch, calmer straight away. One of the men spots this interaction and comes up to the boy, attempting, I think, to help lift him out of his misery. He jostles him affectionately, like an uncle might. ‘What are you crying for?’ he says, slapping the boy on the back. ‘Everything will be fine, inshallah [God willing].’ It is utterly unconvincing to the adults watching, but everyone smiles and nods gratefully at this optimism. It’s all we have.

      I try to wrestle Martin out of his mood dip, Martin who is always so brave, always so fearless but also a realist. ‘Come on, Martin, show me how to get the light on this camera. It’s so dark.’ He shrugs. What’s the point? he seems to be saying. The boom of tanks is still so loud. But he shows me how to switch the light on in the camera. Come on, Martin. Come on, mate, hold on. I can’t do this on my own. He is rallying, and that gives me some more courage.

      I am getting texts now from worried friends and colleagues, and from Richard, who has been watching my reports back home in Dubai. ‘For God’s sake, keep your head down,’ he writes. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I know my voice will give away my true feelings and I am terrified and feeling utterly trapped. We can’t run away anywhere. All we can do is sit and wait. Wait for what we all believe to be the inescapable. I write back: ‘We are in the mosque. It’s the best place to be.’ He writes back: ‘Keep going, it’s riveting stuff.’ He seems strong and supportive.

      From Sky’s London head office I am getting messages telling me not to mention the mosque or where we are, in case we become a target. For the same reason, I am not to say there is a Gaddafi soldier with us in case we become a target, nor to give away who we are with. I’m thinking, but we’re targets already! We are all targets. They are trying to kill us all.

      I look across at Martin and Tim and I know they sense this as much as I do. The Gaddafi men will be in here soon. It can only be a matter of time and then that’s it. Over.

      It’s hard to judge how long this will go on. It feels like for ever. I think it’s roughly three hours. Then the door opens and a young man comes in. ‘They’ve gone,’ he says. ‘It’s over. Come and see.’ I put my head outside the storeroom first and see people streaming out of the front door of the mosque complex. Cautiously, I look outside. There’s a tank immediately outside the front door, half on the green verge of the Square’s central grass embankment. There’s smoke coming out of the turret. I think the rebels must have managed to fire a grenade inside it. Jesus, that’s close. It’s just outside. I haven’t stepped far from the mosque’s entrance when firing begins again. I turn and run back into the sanctuary of the storeroom. ‘Not over yet,’ I say breathlessly to the others. The fighting goes on for at least another hour or so.

      I keep broadcasting and keep hearing my colleague in Tripoli giving a rather different, regime-approved version. ‘The authorities here say there is no fighting in Zawiya. They have regained control. It is once again in the hands of the government,’ she is saying. Then the director in the London studio cuts to me in Zawiya and there is the sound of firing once again. ‘I can tell you the fighting is still going on quite fiercely,’ I say. It very definitely nails the lies being put out by the Gaddafi regime.

      Then the same young man comes in. ‘It’s over, it’s over, I promise you this time, it is over. We have beaten them back.’ This time no one believes him. But I cautiously step out and now it feels very different. There are a lot more people outside. They are falling to their knees, weeping and praying and giving thanks. I run back inside to tell the others. Martin is immediately up and out, camera in hand, with me following in his wake. Outside the feeling is euphoric. They are hugging one another, crying and gasping in joy and relief. We feel the same. Have they really beaten back Gaddafi’s army? How the hell have we all survived? Oh my God, we have survived. Some of us are still alive.

      We spot tanks at either end of the Square. We’re being dragged, pulled, coaxed by everybody around us to see what’s gone on. They want us to see the dead Gaddafi soldiers round this tank and that tank. They’re not Libyans. They’re mercenaries – from Chad, from Niger, from Algeria. There are more here. And more here. The bodies are lying around, on the ground and outside the tanks, half in, half out. Look at this tank on fire. Look how we fought and beat them. See this other tank we destroyed. See what they had inside the tanks – drugs.

      Martin tells them they aren’t drugs. It’s Nutella. No, it’s drugs, they insist. I tell you, it’s chocolate spread, Martin says, then gives up and continues filming the ‘drugs’. I am on the phone to London describing the scene when there’s more firing. People scatter. Everyone is very jittery. My phone cuts out at that point. I don’t know where the shots have come from but they have stopped. Maybe someone fired off a couple in fear or by accident, but it doesn’t seem to be an attack. I am punching the office number into the phone. I know they will be thinking the worst. Bad timing. I get through to the news desk and can СКАЧАТЬ