Monday, October 14, 2019

Libyan Conflict Leaves Rubbish Mounds Smouldering in Tripoli's Streets
Aidan Lewis, Ahmed Elumami

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Mabrouk Ahmed says he has to keep watch into the night to stop people dumping their rubbish on the wide street that runs in front of his home in the south of Libya’s capital, Tripoli.

A few hundred metres away, next to the concrete supports of an unfinished bridge, mounds of trash piled higher than the passing cars smoulder by the roadside.

The build-up of rubbish, which residents say reached unprecedented levels in recent weeks before easing slightly, reflects the steady decline of public services in a city cut off from its hinterland - and largest landfill site - by a six-month-old military offensive.

Since eastern-based forces led by Khalifa Haftar launched a campaign to capture Tripoli in early April, it has become impossible to access the city’s main landfill site in Sidi al-Sayih, about 50 kms (31 miles) south of the centre.

City authorities started depositing waste from across Tripoli at a transit point in the Abu Slim district. When it started overflowing, officials tried to cut down the intake, causing an accumulation of rubbish on the streets of many neighbourhoods.

In response, people have put up signs threatening violence or making religious invocations to stop the rubbish dumping.

Others place plastic water containers and tyres on pavements near their shops or homes, or cordon them off with plastic tape.

“Backward people: don’t dump your rubbish here,” read one sign in Al-Hadba, the district where Ahmed, a 38-year-old health worker lives.

“If I don’t keep an eye from eight in the morning till midnight they dump their rubbish in the street,” he said.

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