Gaddafi’s Last Days And How He Died.

 

10 years ago, Former Libyan leader Gaddafi was murdered. This is a first hand account of the last days of the former president.

Muammar Gaddafi got into power after a coup that happened in the year 1969. He was killed in the 2015. Some people were happy about his death but others argued that his leadership brought lots of development to the country.

10 years ago, there was a revolution that happened in Libya, with some foreign countries like Britain, France and the USA intervening in the issue. The rebels tracked down the former president and killed him.

Anti government protests started in Libya in the month of February 2015, it started about eight months before he was murdered. It was the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that inspired these protests. This protests quickly escalated and turned into a civil war, with the supporters of Gaddafi clashing against the opposition groups, who were armed to the teeth.

On the 28 day of August, 2015, The president and two of his sons fled from the capital of Libya, Tripoli. One of Gaddafi’s son named Khamis was killed that same day. Another of his son managed to escape to a town known as Bani Walid, but rebels soon took over that town. Gaddafi fled again to the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, which was his home town.

 

Some accounts were given about the last days of Gaddafi by Washington Post, they focused mainly on him and his loyalist fighters.

They said that Gaddafi arrived in Sirte with his personal driver and a small team of bodyguards, and a state security operative known as Mansour Dhao. The former dictator moved into an apartment block downtown, there he met two officials under him to discuss about the ongoing civil war. One of the officials was Mutassim his son.

Soon, rebels broke into Sirte. As the fighting increased in Sirte, Gaddafi moved to a more remote neighbourhood, which was at the western part of tow

He didn’t live like a president anymore, he was only trying to survive. Himself and his small team moved between abandoned houses, with no reliable source of food. Gaddafi who had been a dictator for a long time, stealing billions of dollars from his country, was desperately searching the cupboards of abandoned homes for any left over food that he could find. At this time, even getting drinking water was quite a difficult task.

Gaddafi mostly spent his time praying and reading the Qur’an. They had no means of communication, no television, nothing at all. They only had a satellite phone which they used to know what was happening on the news.

His team no longer had any duties apart from just sleeping, waking up and staying alive. They kept moving every four days, so that their location wouldn’t be discovered by the rebels. Dhao said that they made use of only two cars. He said that the more they moved, the more Gaddafi became more and more angry.

He was very angry about the lack of communication, electricity, television and the fact that he could not communicate with the outside world. He said Gaddafi would always asked them “why is there no water or electricity?”.

On the 19th day of October, Gaddafi’s son told him that he had come up with a plan, that they would flee from the Sirte. He said that they were going to break through the rebels that were watching Sirte and escape. Gaddafi agreed to this plan and then they started making arrangements. They loaded their convoy with weapons and also wounded soldiers. It was a convoy of fifty verhicles.

Their plan was to move by 3:30 or 4am but they delayed and moved by 8a.m. This was a risky time because many of the rebels had returned to their duty posts.

After they started moving, the rebels caught up with them and started attacking them. A missile was fired and it landed very close to Gaddafi’s car. Dhao, his right hand man got injured from the explosion, as they continued their journey. They ran into rebels again at Misurata. Gaddafi’s convoy started firing at the rebels It was at this point that NATO jets dropped bombs that destroyed dozens of cars and the convoy was dispersed.

Gaddafi and his team of bodyguards, along with his son, jumped out of their vehicles and started running on foot, which makes the rebels to ran after them.

In no time, his son Mutassim was caught and killed. There were lots of cement construction blocks in the place that they hid themselves.

One of Gaddafi’s bodyguards tried to throw a grenade at the rebels, but it bounced off a concrete block back at them, the bodyguard jumped on it, but it took off the arm of the bodyguard and also injured Gaddafi and his defence minister.

Gaddafi was bleeding from his head, and in no time, he was surrounded by the rebels, who immediately started beating him up. They stabbed him in the anus and then put him in a pick up truck and tried to drive him off, but Gaddafi fell off from the pick up truck. Yes he needed to be tried, but the rebels were not taking non of that.

Nobody has a clear account of what happened next of exactly how he died. But what was seen next was pictures of his bloodied lifeless body that was shared all over the world.

A rebel group claimed that they shot him, but nobody knows for sure how he actually died.