Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat. Alex Crawford
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It is loud and threatening and very, very frightening. We’re not on the front line. We are in the middle of the battle.
The casualties are getting worse. I am sitting in the corner of the clinic watching as the doctors are seeing injuries no medic in any state-of-the-art hospital with all the latest equipment could save. They certainly can’t be saved here with these meagre medical supplies. I am quite sure the doctors cannot have seen injuries like it. I certainly haven’t. They are battlefield injuries – arms blown off, legs half off, skulls smashed open. One man is so peppered with wounds I can’t actually see anywhere he is not hit. His clothes are deep red. The smell is strong. Blood has a particular smell. Death has another. They are both in my nostrils and all over my skin. I am feeling useless, utterly useless. I can’t help these people. I can’t tend to them. All I can do is watch these people dying in front of me.
A large man comes in carrying another of about the same size over his shoulder. He must be more than six foot tall. He’s big and strong. He puts the very limp, badly injured man down on the floor of the clinic as the doctors try to plug holes and wipe whatever they can. One of the medics is screaming: ‘Saline! Saline!’ It’s constant and repetitive and takes me a while to work out what he is saying because the pitch is so high. He sounds absolutely panic-stricken. I’m thinking saline is not going to even start helping this guy. I look outside and the big man who has brought the casualty in is bent over a chair standing on its own in the courtyard. He’s retching and vomiting. Is it exertion? Fear? Pain? Maybe a combination of all three?
I go back into the storeroom. I feel like crying. Am I the only one? I can’t be. I’m sure we all do, but something stops us. Tim and Martin are sitting there with about half a dozen other people. One young man is sitting in a motorcycle helmet reading the Koran. Others are just staring blankly ahead. Everyone has this sweat of fear on their face.
I look over at Martin and see he’s returning my gaze. He’s thinking: Is she thinking what I’m thinking? I am. We know each other so well that I’m positive the same dreadful thoughts are coursing through his mind too right now. This is as hopeless a situation as we’ve ever been in. We’re going to die.
I can’t see a way out, and Martin – who has been in so many wars in so many countries – can’t see a way out either. Boom, boom, boom. I can feel the presence of the monstrous Gaddafi tanks right outside where we are sitting, crouching, cowering. And the stone walls feel terribly thin and flimsy, more like raffia paper. They are no defence, no cover at all. Gaddafi’s soldiers seem to be all around us. We feel cornered, hemmed in, and utterly defenceless.
The blasts from the tanks are so loud they are damaging my ears. The noise is crashing and thunderous and vibrates through us. Please don’t turn that tank into this wall, please, I’m pleading.
The rebels outside are fighting for their lives – and ours. Their city is under violent, barbarous attack from Colonel Gaddafi’s forces and, frankly, they have no choice. They fight or they are crushed.
In the storeroom there are people just like us, about half a dozen who have just been caught up in the fighting or who have fled here to shelter. We don’t have a single recognizable weapon between us. There is a young boy next to me. He’s probably the youngest – about 15 years old, the same age as my son, Nat. He’s crying, his hands gripping his ears to try to stifle the noise. The oldest is a man of about 55. He is staring ahead into space, clutching a briefcase which has his laptop in it. The laptop has saved his life already, taking a bullet which then ricocheted past his thigh. It took a chunk of his skin with it and he’s bleeding, but it’s only a surface wound. That’s not what he’s going to die of.
Martin and I are just staring at each other across the room, not saying anything, but we’re reading each other’s thoughts. He looks terrified. Just like I feel.
I suddenly want my family. I want to be near them, to know they are safe. I miss them and their love in this well of hate in which we have found ourselves. Christ, I have got too much to live for to die here in a foreign country away from them all. I look over to Tim and see he’s looking down at the floor. He’s a picture of despair.
We’re all thinking the same thing, but we’re all too frightened to voice it aloud right now. We’re not going to get out of this alive. I see Martin very definitely put down his camera. No point. Shit, he has given up, I’m thinking. Tim is telling me to stay inside, stay in the storeroom, stay still, stay with him and Martin, conserve my energy. He’s holding his BlackBerry. We’ve both got pictures of our children on our phones. But we know if we look at them there’ll be no holding back the emotions.
Is Tim saying goodbye to them in his head, saying goodbye to those he loves? Oh God, I’m scared to my very core. Am I ever going to see my children again? Am I going to die here in this grubby little storeroom frightened out of my wits?
I pull myself back from this dangerous frame of mind. It’s the only way I can function. The only way I can carry on. I want people to know what’s happening. I want people to 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