Читать книгу Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat - Alex Crawford - Страница 7

Tuesday, 1 March

Four days earlier, I’m in bed in my home in Dubai, where I have been posted for Sky News as a Special Correspondent and where my family and I now live. A buzz sounds on my phone and wakes me. It’s late and I’m disturbed but that’s all. I had been hoping for this message, and when the text comes I feel a rush of adrenalin.

‘Can you go to Libya? John.’

John Ryley, the head of Sky News, never wastes words (or letters for that matter). But this is all I want to hear from him anyway. Great. We are off. Martin Smith, who is my cameraman, and I have already been on a whirlwind of Arab Spring stories, our feet barely touching the ground as we rush from one revolution to another – Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Egypt again. Now it’s Libya. And Libya could be the hardest, most brutal regime to be taken on so far. Colonel Gaddafi has been in power for forty-two years. He and his sons run the country like a personal fiefdom and he shows no sign of giving up despite the huge protest demonstrations calling for him to end his rule. Libya is also important to the rest of the world for another, particularly significant, reason. It is one of the world’s top ten energy-producing countries – accounting for nearly 2 per cent of total oil production. The unrest has led to a sharp increase in global oil prices. It is a hugely exciting time to be a journalist, exhilarating to be at the centre of these huge events with big implications for the world. We all want to be there.

Recently, Martin and I haven’t even had time to unpack before we’re off again – to another country where the regime would rather shoot or arrest us than let us report or film what’s going on.

This time, though, it’s different. We are going in legitimately. The Libyan government is issuing visas and ‘invitations’ so journalists can travel to the country and ‘see the truth for themselves’. But it is already becoming clear that the regime intends to manipulate the journalists as much as possible. They want to get their message out. And that message is that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is still popular, still powerful and still very much in control. But, before tackling the Libyan regime, I have to manage my own domestic revolt.

Telling my four children I am off again and going away from them is definitely the very worst part of my job. My youngest child, Flo, who is 8, is looking up at me and her brown eyes are filling with tears. ‘But for how long, Mum? How long are you going away for? Will you be back in time for my parent–teacher conference?’ I say the same thing every time. ‘I’ll try, baby. I’ll try really hard. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ She’s clinging to me, sobbing into my stomach. I am feeling rotten. ‘Please don’t go, Mum. Pleeeease? Why can’t you be like other mums? If you love me, you wouldn’t go. Will you be back by next week? Will you? Will you?’ I hate having to disappoint them but I know in my mind the revolution probably isn’t going to be all over by next Thursday. That’s not a revolution timetable. But I just can’t find the courage to break her heart by telling her this harsh truth. I hope I’m braver in Libya.

Florence is not yet in double figures but is more than adept at pulling the heartstrings and deploying a fearsome array of emotional blackmail tactics. ‘You know what would really help when you go away? (pause for effect) … A puppy.’

‘Hmmm, let me think about it,’ I say, playing for time.

Sometimes I don’t even have the chance to say goodbye. They might be at school, on a play-date, or it could be I leave in the middle of the night to catch a flight or make a connection. If I can, I try to leave little notes hidden around their rooms. They don’t say much. Maybe ‘I love you’ or ‘Remember when you are reading this, I am thinking of you and missing you loads.’ Sometimes – much to their irritation – the notes will have more functional messages, such as, ‘Have you brushed your teeth yet? I will know if you haven’t!’ and ‘Remember to do all your homework, even the reading for twenty minutes a night bit.’ I’m not sure it helps fill the yawning gap of an absent mother, but they tell me they enjoy trying to find the notes under their pillows, hidden in their school books, tucked away in their underwear drawers.

My eldest, Nat, who is 15, gives the outward appearance of being the most stoic about it all. He’ll just anxiously ask how long I’ll be away and where I am going. He’s not happy in Dubai, where we’re living now. He doesn’t much like the new school. He doesn’t much like the students. He misses India (where we were previously posted) and all his friends there. He’s still sore at us for taking him away from his old life and he’s constantly asking to go back. Oh dear Nat, no, my love, there’s no going back. My heart is hurting for him. I loved India too and I desperately want him to be happy. But the job is here now. In Dubai, in the Gulf. And the Middle East and North Africa are bubbling with discontent. And not just Nat’s either.

The dynamics of the family change when one of us is absent. I notice, when one of them has a sleepover elsewhere, the noise levels dip, there are different family allegiances, different sparring matches. When Mum disappears for weeks it must alter considerably. Frankie is the second eldest (just 13) but far more mature than all of us put together. She used to be terribly upset when I disappeared for work before, now she becomes very angry. And she doesn’t seem to get used to it either. She just gets angrier.

‘Mum, you really have to sort out your priorities,’ she tells me. ‘Why do you have to go? Can’t someone else do it? Why you? Just tell your news desk you have children, Mum. Don’t they realize that? You know what, Mum, when I grow up I am going to do a job where I actually see my children.’ Wow, the volleys are coming in thick and fast. Frankie gives me the hardest time out of all the children but also bombards me with affectionate text messages while I am away. But she has one final warning: ‘And you better not miss my birthday, Mum.’ It’s coming up in less than three weeks. Yet another deadline to meet. Oh, my gosh, I’d forgotten all about that. That’s going to be tight.

Maddy, at 11 years old, is the least outwardly perturbed of the three girls and probably the most interested in news events and what’s going on in the world. She records her own little news diaries on her mobile phone and always signs them off: ‘This is Maddy Edmondson for Sky News.’ She has an audience of one – Maddy Edmondson – and occasionally Maddy Edmondson’s mother. She has her own Twitter account too – long before her mother was encouraged by her office to get one. I think she had three followers – her two sisters and her mum. She’s more a Facebook girl. But Facebook doesn’t replace a mum who is away working. She doesn’t like me going away either. They all – Nat apart – cry when I leave, and as soon as the door shuts they start counting down the days until I am back.

And then there’s Richard – a hugely successful and decorated racing and sports journalist who is now largely responsible for keeping the Crawford–Edmondson household afloat. Sometimes even close friends ponder: ‘And what’s old Rick doing these days?’ What? You mean apart from looking after the four children, doing the homework, the cooking, the ironing and the school drop-offs? Well, yes, in between he’s also trying to do some freelance writing and keep a foothold in the business he loves while his wife is off racing round the world. Yeah, not up to much really.

Richard gave up his job on the Independent newspaper after more than twenty years so I could become a foreign correspondent, which involved us all moving to India so I could take up the post of Asia correspondent at the end of 2005. It was a lot harder than either of us imagined. For a start, I’m sure you know, the world is still very sexist, one which remains largely divided on gender lines. And it’s emphasized particularly when you are an expat living abroad. Richard will quite often be the only man doing the daily drop-offs at the international school gates, the only man at the parent ‘get-to-know-you’ lunches, the only man solely organizing his children’s birthday parties, the only man at the school coffee mornings. It is hard for him and I have no doubt it is also very lonely.

There’s also a crushing loss of status which many women will be all too familiar with after having children and stepping off the career ladder. I wouldn’t say Richard is used to it by now. Does anyone ever get used to it? My former Foreign Editor, Adrian Wells, used to say he should be canonized. ‘How does he put up with you? How does he put up with it? How on earth does he do it?’ are the common questions. And if Richard is viewed as a saint by some, I often feel the opposite about my own status.

Most of the time I feel I am failing – failing as a mother, failing as a wife, failing as a foreign correspondent – because I can’t give any of my roles the time I want to. A foreign correspondent’s job requires 150 per cent commitment. I have waited so long to be a foreign correspondent based abroad and came to it that much later in life. I feel I have a lot of catching up to do. It’s a 24/7 job and to do it well you have to put in so much time and effort. The necessary skills of being a mother of four often seem to involve having the organizational and diplomatic qualities of a CEO cum banker cum chef cum sergeant major. I constantly feel torn between all of my roles and feel like I am not succeeding at any of them.

Now I’m the main breadwinner and, for all the pain caused by constantly leaving the family, the work has to be worth it. I can’t afford to do a bad job. It has to be good. Well, more than good. Otherwise why put everyone through all of this? I love the job, the places it takes me to, the people I get to meet, the stories just waiting to be uncovered. To be honest, I love the thrill and the adventure – so much so, it often feels terribly selfish. I don’t enjoy being shot at. It’s not the danger I love. Often I am terrified. Rather it’s the opportunity of going to corners of the world I wouldn’t get to if it wasn’t for my job. It’s the chance to make a difference somewhere to someone. Along with many foreign correspondents I realize how damn lucky I am to be doing this job and frankly I don’t want to screw it up. I want them – my family – to be proud of me. I want them to feel like it’s worth it. For all our sakes, I must try to do my best in Libya.

This particular departure coincides with a visit by the in-laws – or it is about to. This will ease the pain for all considerably, particularly Richard. His parents, June and Bill, have arrived in the region for a holiday. They are going on a mini cruise which was booked months ago and – unbeknown to them at the time of booking – seems to take in all the Middle East revolution hotspots – Bahrain, Oman, the Gulf of Aden. Half the itinerary has been adjusted, with many of the hotspots crossed off owing to ‘uprisings’. So now it’s just the pirates they have to watch out for. After the cruise, they will stay at our home in Dubai for the rest of their break. Good. The children will be distracted by loving grandparents. Richard will be distracted by being run off his feet as the host.

Right now, though, I have got to pack. The goodbyes are always horrendous and, to be honest, I want them over as soon as possible. They’re just too hurtful for everyone.

Wednesday, 2 March

Martin and I fly from Dubai to Tunis and meet Tim Miller, Sky’s Deputy Foreign Editor. He is a hugely popular figure in the newsroom – easy-going, sensible, always pleasant to deal with. ‘Bonjour, mes amis,’ he says with a broad smile. ‘Allez, Libya!’ We’re pleased to see him. We’re all pleased to be on the trail of the story. For now, all we can see is the future.

The plan is that the three of us will enter the country legitimately but try to shake off Gaddafi’s ‘minders’ as soon as possible. Their remit is to ensure the ‘right’ Gaddafi version of events is broadcast. Our remit is to try to report on what is really going on inside Libya.

At least that’s the plan. The three of us relocate to a small café in the airport where we have the first of many croque-monsieurs waiting for the Tunis Air check-in desk to open. But when it does, the answer is a firm ‘Non!’

We are still waiting for the official letters from Tripoli cordially inviting our attendance and, as far as the airline is concerned, they do not exist. We beg, we plead, we rant with the elderly Tunis Air official, who is Libyan. We get letters faxed and emailed from Sky and show him our journalist press passes. Non, non and non again.

He asks if I can talk Arabic. I say: ‘Kafah halak’ (‘How are you?’) Somehow he recognizes I’m not a professor of the language. ‘How can you go into Libya if you don’t speak Arabic?’ He’s smiling a smile which indicates he’s not smiling much inside. I’m thinking, can you please just let us on the plane? What difference does it make to you? But he won’t be persuaded. In fact I think he’s enjoying our discomfort and our pleading. ‘I am so sorry, ma’am.’ He doesn’t look sorry at all to me. I think he’s a Gaddafi loyalist. He doesn’t want to make this easy for us. We don’t give up until the plane actually takes off.

Then it is time for Plan B. Tim has heard Air Afrique is letting people on without visas. That’s the good news. The bad news is the planes are leaving from Paris. We get the next plane to France. We book a hotel near to the airport, and by now we’re all becoming very twitchy about our complete lack of success in getting into Libya. We’re actually moving further away.

Still, optimism never dies. We have to hold on to that. I ask the foreign desk in London whether our colleagues in Tripoli need us to bring anything out for them. Lisa Holland has been reporting from the capital ‘under the restrictions of the Libyan government’, helped by producer Lorna Ward. We’re given a huge long list of items to bring out which includes coffee, tea bags, energy bars, sun cream, snacks and odour-eaters (no one owns up to asking for these). Tim gets up really early to rush round a supermarket close to the airport to fill a rucksack full of these various ‘essentials’. He rings up at one point as Martin and I are checking out of the airport hotel to ask for the French word for ‘odour-eaters’. Oddly, neither of us knows. Then we all set off for the airport.

We get as far as the check-in desk and, again, an airline official stops us. No visa? Hmmm. But she is a Libyan who has lived and worked in Paris for years now and is much more sympathetic. She has the personal number of one of the Gaddafi officials in Tripoli and rings him up in front of us. Somehow our names are on a list and she agrees to let us on. Hurdle one crossed.

It’s a short flight to Tripoli – only a few hours – and we are bursting with anticipation and suppressed excitement. What will it be like? How will we be treated? Will we get through the airport security OK?

When we land we are immediately segregated from the other passengers, the ones who all look like Libyans and have Libyan passports. We’re taken to a small room where there is already a European crew. They say they have been waiting for hours. We sit down. Within a very short time, the other crew is led away. They have their permissions to enter the country.

The BBC’s Wyre Davies is on our flight and he joins us in the room. There is a large picture of Colonel Gaddafi in the corner and I get Tim to take a picture of me with it. It’s the closest I ever get to the leader. So we sit and wait and wait and wait. All of us are tired already and we use the time to sleep. There’s plenty of time.

Wyre is told he has his visa within half an hour, but we are there for another three and a half hours. Finally we are allowed through immigration. As we walk out we see Wyre. He’s still here. He hasn’t been able to get any transport and he joins us. The airport is very busy. There are people milling around everywhere trying to get flights out. Many governments are evacuating their nationals out of Libya and those people who haven’t got help from their government are still trying to leave. Even though it’s dark and already night-time, it’s still pleasant temperature-wise – around the early thirties – typical Mediterranean weather, very balmy. We’re on the coast of North Africa but somehow it feels undeniably Arabic here, with a number of women wearing the hijab (Muslim headscarf). We walk out of the airport, following a Libyan official who says he will take us to the media hotel. We’re led onto a government bus and notice – even through the darkness – there are lots of people waiting outside the airport’s front entrance. We’re told not to film and none of us wants to do anything to irritate the official who has just let us into the country. So we don’t.

It feels tense. Everyone seems tense – the workers, the would-be flyers, the newly arrived, the armed guards who are standing both inside and outside the airport. Everyone seems edgy. Several towns in eastern Libya have already erupted in fighting – Tobruk and Benghazi are the two most notable. It began on 17 February, just over two weeks ago, when a general call for uprising was answered in several towns. It is the date the Libyans are calling the start of their revolution. They’ve seen their neighbours in Egypt (to the east) and Tunisia (to the west) rise up and defeat their dictators. Now it’s their turn. The fighting has already spread to Tripoli, with heavy gunfire heard in the capital and reports that the airport itself was taken by the rebels in the last week of February. Several planeloads of African mercenaries from neighbouring Sudan, Chad, Algeria and Niger have been seen being flown into Tripoli to help the Colonel fight his own people. Already there have been some defections from the Colonel’s own military: he needs to find other soldiers to help him stay in power.

The People’s Hall in Tripoli (banned to the actual people), which was the meeting place of the Libyan General People’s Congress, has been set on fire about a week before our arrival. Several police stations have been set alight, as well as the Justice Ministry in the capital.

We’ve seen pictures uploaded onto YouTube of Libyans burning the Green Book in Tobruk. This is Gaddafi’s book of ‘rules’ and ideas – his political and economic philosophy for Libya. It is compulsory reading for every Libyan, a sort of Libyan answer to Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. It is both hated and scorned. In it, the Brother Leader, as the Colonel has renamed himself, teaches that the wage system should be abolished, that people should earn just what they need to and no more, that they should not own more than one house, that private enterprise is ‘exploitation’ and should be abolished. For the past twenty years, Libyans have told me, Gaddafi’s state machinery has even attempted to restrict access to private bank accounts so the regime can draw on those funds for government projects. He has set up People’s Supermarkets where prices are controlled. He says often that he wants to ban money and schools. As the American commentator Michael J. Totten put it, he ‘treats his country, communist-style, like a mad scientist’s laboratory’.

Despite some liberalization over the past couple of decades, there is huge discontent and many of the educated and wealthy Libyans have long fled abroad to neighbouring Egypt or farther afield to Britain and America. Now there are large street protests, the Brother Leader has responded with bizarre and eccentric speeches on state television, threatening to slaughter protesters and promising the death penalty for numerous crimes. In one speech he addresses his discontented nation from underneath an umbrella. ‘We will fight to every last man, woman and bullet,’ he says.

We were hoping to see here in the capital some of the seething discontent of forty-two years of built-up repression. We know it’s happening; finally Libyans are saying, ‘No more!’ But this seems to be contained in the east – in Benghazi and Tobruk. The fighting in Tripoli seems to have been quashed so far, with forces loyal to Gaddafi tightening their grip here. Certainly there’s no obvious sign of rebellion right now, not here anyway. I had expected more evidence of fighting somehow, but there’s none. Mind you, it’s dark. I half wonder whether that’s why we have been held in the airport for so long – to ensure we can’t see very much on the journey to our accommodation. And if that is the case, it has worked. The streets seem clean and quiet from what we can make out on the way to the hotel.

The bus journey is swift. The Rixos Hotel, our destination, is already full to overflowing, not just with journalists but also with Gaddafi officials and minders. Lorna has said there is no room for Martin and me, so we say we’ll go to stay at the Corinthia Hotel. This is the second media hotel, selected for us by the regime, but it’s some distance away and virtually unoccupied. Many journalists feel the place to be is the Rixos, as the news conferences are held there and any information to be gleaned from the Libyan authorities is probably going to come from this location. Martin and I are fine with being away from the media pack. We prefer it that way.

We get off the bus at the Rixos only to say a brief hello and goodbye to our colleagues. We’re famished, even more so when we notice that the hotel is serving the most wonderful five-star buffet. I look at Tim’s rucksack laden with snacks, tea bags and the vital odour-eaters and think, why did we bring all of that?

Martin and I guzzle down a quick meal. Lorna and Lisa have spent the day driving around Tripoli with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (the Colonel’s second son but considered his heir apparent). They are very pleased with their journalistic coup. Lorna tells us: ‘You know, I’m almost beginning to believe them [the regime]. He got a very good reception out on the streets whenever we stopped.’ It sounds like quite a story and they have done well to persuade Gaddafi’s son to be filmed and interviewed in this way. It gives us all an insight into just how deluded and controlling the regime is. But this is a country where Saif and his father have outlawed all political opposition, where there is no freedom of speech or media, where people ‘disappear’ and are routinely tortured during interrogation or as a punishment.

I am extremely doubtful that Saif is really that popular and conclude – as all the journalists at the Rixos have already worked out – that this regime is bent on attempting to manipulate journalists and, for that matter, politicians too.

The hotel is extremely comfy and the food excellent. You wouldn’t find much better in many other cities around the world. It’s far superior to the fare offered at our Paris airport hotel the night before. It’s all very cleverly aimed at making the recipients feel well looked after and catered for. It is, unfortunately, a necessary evil for the journalistic fraternity to stay here. It’s the only way to get any access at all to the regime. I am certain it must take an especially strong type of person to remain untainted or unaffected by the twenty-four-hour-a-day brainwashing which must be going on around here. But many of the journalists present are the most senior from all the international channels around the world. If they can’t remain immune, then no one can.

Martin and I are desperate not to fall into the regime’s clutches in the first place. By staying at the Rixos we might find out how the mind of the regime operates (but our colleagues are doing that already). We want to find out for ourselves what ordinary Libyan people are thinking and what life is like for those outside these walls. We’re not going to be able to do that if we are escorted by Gaddafi minders, that’s for sure. Martin and I quickly adjourn to the Corinthia. We don’t want to be spotted by too many of the minders who are also staying at the Rixos. Tim will stay with the Sky team in the Rixos and we arrange to meet him first thing the next morning to work out a plan.

The Corinthia is a large, five-star hotel with two huge sky-scraping towers set just a little back from the Mediterranean coast. It has three impressive arches contained under a giant one at its entrance and looks incredibly plush – perhaps even more so than the Rixos. We step into a large, open-plan lobby with gold or gold-coloured furnishings and decoration everywhere. There are gold-coloured pillars, gold-coloured walls, wood floors with a sort of dark-gold sheen about them and a gold-coloured dome where the reception is. Set to the left of the reception is an odd-looking large silver bowl with water pouring out of it down some ornamental steps. Plush indeed, but there’s a big difference from the Rixos. The Corinthia seems to be deserted, with only about six guests in it – and they are all journalists. We see them sitting round a table the next morning. We go over to say hello. One of them is Richard Spencer from the Daily Telegraph, who is also based in Dubai but with whom I have spoken only on the telephone until now. There’s a guy from the Guardian and Anita McNaught from Al Jazeera. They are all very friendly and they give us a quick briefing about how difficult it is to get out without the minders. But occasionally they have managed to escape, mainly because they are away from the main media gang in the Rixos. I exchange telephone numbers with them and say we will try to keep in touch.

We go over to the Rixos and walk into the breakfast room, which is packed with journalists from around the world. Bill Neely from ITN comes up and says hello, friendly as ever. He is a fierce competitor but that doesn’t stop him from being approachable and good company. Then Paul Danahar, the BBC’s Middle East Bureau Chief, greets us. ‘They’re trying to get everyone to go to Sirte,’ he says. ‘They’re expecting trouble in Tripoli after Friday prayers today, so they’re doing their best to get as many of us out of the capital as possible.’ It’s generous information from a rival given to the new guys in town. There are different rules among competitors in a hostile environment, and he is being very helpful.

We have travelled light, carrying just two rucksacks with ‘day’ equipment. We’ve been told there’s a trip somewhere – by helicopter maybe, or by bus – and so we are just taking what we need for a day’s filming. After breakfast the journalists are causing a bit of a rumpus outside the front of the hotel. The minders are trying to persuade them to board a bus and no one much wants to go. There’s a row developing. Martin starts filming as a few of the journalists – led by Paul Danahar – start remonstrating with the officials, primarily Moussa Ibrahim, who is the Gaddafi regime’s spokesperson at the Rixos.

Ibrahim has a body language which reeks of hostility. He has prematurely thinning hair and a fairly stout figure which is clothed in the European ‘uniform’ of open-necked shirt and jacket. He is also staying at the Rixos – a fellow ‘prisoner’ – and we’ve seen him earlier having breakfast with his young German wife and very young child. He speaks impeccable English, having studied in Britain at Exeter University and afterwards taken a PhD at Royal Holloway College, London. He’s a very well-educated and adept arguer of the Gaddafi point of view. Right now he is walking in large circles in the hotel car park, trying to avoid answering Paul’s rather persistent points about leaving the hotel. Ibrahim is insisting he cannot let any of us out because our presence could trigger violence among what he calls the ‘affiliates of Al Qaeda’ who are on the streets outside. In the confusion, Bill Neely and his crew make a break for the hotel car park’s gate, which has armed men guarding it. The three of us just happen to be watching this all unfold. Yep, good idea, Bill, I think. We follow in their wake. We manage to get out before the guards are alerted and try to stop any more of us. Most of the other journalists are prevented from leaving.

Outside the Rixos is strange, uncharted territory for the foreign journalists. Few have been able to leave the five-star luxury of the hotel without a government chaperone. The regime has been insisting Tripoli is a city packed with Gaddafi supporters, any number of whom could turn us in or report us to the authorities, not necessarily out of loyalty but maybe out of fear. We’re not expecting to meet many friends out here.

Now some of us are outside the confines of the Rixos and out of the control of minders. We have escaped their gilded cage. We run straight away into a traffic roundabout which seems fairly busy with cars. There don’t seem to be many, if any, people walking around here. It is a built-up area and I can’t see much above the walls which have been erected around what look like residential properties next to the hotel. It’s just an intersection with about three or four roads leading off the circle and we’re all anxious to get as far away as possible from the Rixos as quickly as possible before the minders come out and find us.

Bill tries to jump into a taxi but the driver refuses to take him and his team. We head off in another direction, leaving them behind, and flag down a man who has his family in the car. The three of us cram ourselves in, apologizing and thanking him in equal measure. He has a Gaddafi poster on the front of his dashboard.

We ask if he can take us to Tjoura, where we have heard there has been some protesting by anti-regime people the evening before. He raises his eyebrows. ‘No, no, it’s dangerous. Too dangerous.’ OK, then maybe just to catch a taxi? He drops us off a few streets away and we manage to find a taxi. The man in control of the wheels appears to be the most grumpy cab driver in all of Libya but, crucially, he agrees to take us to Tjoura. Tim has photocopied a piece of paper written in Arabic which has been given to him by the Sky team in the Rixos. It is a letter-headed document from the regime saying we are journalists and should be looked after as we are travelling with the government’s permission and are accompanied by a Libyan representative (minder). This will be our get-out-of-jail card many times over.

We pass army tanks positioned at the entrance to Tjoura, a city on the south-east flank of Tripoli. But they don’t stop us. Tjoura is important to us for two reasons: it is the site of a nuclear research facility (Gaddafi has long harboured ambitions to build a nuclear weapon) and it is home to a considerable body of the Opposition, known to be the most anti-Gaddafi district in Tripoli. We are expecting there will be a large turnout today after Friday prayers to express this discontent once again. But it’s very quiet. Too quiet. The streets are empty. There are some smouldering piles of ash outside the mosque, but, even though it’s Friday and the time for midday prayers, the doors are shut and there’s no one around. We circle for a while but the taxi driver is not comfortable being here and so we head off towards the port.

In this vast country – the fourth largest in Africa – most of its 1.76 million square kilometres of land mass is consumed by the Sahara desert. Libya is around seven times larger than the UK but has only a tenth of the population and not a single permanent waterway throughout the country. The significance of Tripoli’s port is therefore huge. But, instead of the trading which is its hallmark, there we see thousands of migrant workers all waiting to be rescued from Libya. Some are from Côte d’Ivoire, which itself is suffering violent upheaval. But to them even Côte d’Ivoire seems preferable to Tripoli. These foreign workers are castigated by the Libyan revolutionaries, who think they may be Gaddafi mercenaries, while also being victimized by the indigenous population, who resent them for taking their jobs (there is 30 per cent unemployment). We film and interview many of them. Our grumpy taxi driver is anxious to go. He wants to get to the mosque, or anywhere else for that matter. What he doesn’t want to do is hang around for some foreign television crew. For a start, what he is doing will be viewed very dimly by the authorities and he runs the risk of jail or torture or worse. We pay him and he leaves, relieved.

Another man approaches us offering to take his place. He is rotund and middle-aged, with greasy hair, and looks decidedly untrustworthy. ‘Come, I will take you. Where do you want to go?’ he says. He’s seen our interaction with the grumpy cabbie and heard me talking to Martin. ‘Christ, what are we going to do now?’ or something along those lines. I hesitate. There’s something I just don’t like about the man. I can’t put my finger on it and it may well be unfounded but here I don’t want to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. I thank him and move away.

Another gentleman, in his late sixties, is also watching us. He says in an aside to me that the rotund, persistent man begging to be our driver is an undercover Gaddafi agent. I notice he is weaving in and out of the crowd but never going very far away from us. I have no idea whether he is telling me the truth or not but I instantly like the cut of this older, more calmly reassuring man. My instincts tell me he is OK and right now I have nothing else but instinct to guide me. There appear to be very few taxis and certainly none here. We are outside of the official set-up at the Rixos so we are very much on our own. Our office in London can’t help us either. It’s not like you can call up a minicab company or flag down a black cab.

Martin likes this man too, and I reckon if Martin and I think the same of someone it’s usually the right impression. ‘Will you drive us?’ I ask him. ‘We need help.’ It’s his turn to hesitate, but only very fractionally, and it’s immediately more reassuring still. He’s not doing this for the cash or because he’s the real Gaddafi agent. ‘Yes, yes,’ he says. We ask to go to Green Square. (This is one of Tripoli’s most notable landmarks, originally called Piazza Italia, or Italy Square, when constructed by the country’s colonial rulers. Then, during the Libyan monarchy, it became Independence Square, only to be renamed Green Square by Gaddafi, to reflect the political philosophy set out in his Green Book.) The elderly gent is a lovely man, very kind and constantly saying: ‘No problem, no problem. Everything good.’

When we arrive at the Square, there is a demonstration all right but not the type we expected. About half a dozen demonstrators are moving down the middle of the road. Just a week ago – according to witnesses – this square was filled with rebels who were then fired on by government snipers in crow’s nest positions on buildings. It was here that soldiers opened up with live ammunition on those calling for change. But today the small group is waving the green flag of Gaddafi supporters, chanting their love and support for the Brother Leader. We’re disappointed and wonder whether this is going to be the end of our streak for freedom from outside the Rixos. Still, we get out – a little hesitantly – to see what’s going on and film. We realize instantly the marchers are clearly being organized and directed by soldiers on the sidelines. A big banner denouncing the BBC is pinned up on a building. As soon as the small group see Martin’s camera they start chanting enthusiastically. A short time later, a van pulls up in front of the soldiers and it is full of pro-Gaddafi placards and flags, which are handed out to the growing number of his supporters who are gathering or being corralled. The soldiers are more concerned with marshalling the pro-Gaddafi supporters than worrying about whether we have permission or not to be there. And besides we are doing just what the regime wants us to do – filming the support for the Colonel.

I try to do a piece-to-camera – with Martin filming me walking along – and the small group follows me everywhere, filling the background so the ‘crowd’ looks plump and heaving. Even when I keep fluffing my lines and retrace my steps, they too stop and come back with me as I start my walk-and-talk again. It’s almost hilarious, but also frustrating. I am racking my brains as to how we can show this farce in one of our television reports. I notice a soldier approaching our taxi driver and taking down the old boy’s mobile phone number. We leave shortly afterwards. We have some material for a report, but we’re all thinking the same thing. Are we missing something? Where are the rebel protests? Are they too scared to come out? We want to carry on looking. If there are none, then there are none. They can’t be invented. But we don’t want to be embarrassed by simply not finding them.

‘Why don’t we check out Zawiya?’ says Tim, out of nowhere. Zawiya is fundamentally important to the regime because it’s not only home to one of the two most important oil refineries in the country, but it also straddles the road between the capital and the Tunisian border to the west. It is right on a vital supply route – so retaining control of Zawiya is imperative. (The city has been in the news recently because the media group at the Rixos had been taken there on a chaperoned trip about a week earlier.)

Zawiya was supposed to be an example of a city which had been ‘retaken’ by the Gaddafi loyalists; where a small group of rebels had fought but lost. But when the media bus arrived in the centre they were met by flag-waving, protesting rebels. It was a bit of an embarrassment for the Gaddafi PR team. I agree with Tim. Let’s go to Zawiya. I haven’t got a better plan. We’ve now been in Libya and working on this story for about eighteen hours and got precisely diddly squat from the Opposition. So far we haven’t seen a single rebel or anyone who will call themselves an Opposition fighter or supporter in public.

Zawiya is only about thirty miles away – a relatively short distance if it wasn’t for the many checkpoints, which become more and more frequent the closer we get. At one stage we get a call from the foreign desk saying there’s been tear-gassing of rebel protesters back in Tjoura. Damn. How did we miss that? We were only just there. Should we go back? The taxi driver sighs. ‘We’re nearly there now,’ he says, rolling his eyes. So we carry on.

We breeze through the first few checkpoints. The taxi driver cannily puts all over his dashboard a huge Gaddafi poster which he’d been handed by the green-flag-waving people in Green Square. Tim pulls out his photocopied permission at each enforced stop and the driver indicates he is our minder. He has a natural authority which comes with age and living life, and the soldiers believe him. We get waved through. The driver gets a call on his mobile. I hear him saying, ‘Zawiya.’ When he puts the phone down, I ask: ‘That was the soldier from Green Square, wasn’t it?’ He laughs slightly nervously and nods but carries on regardless. The soldier is checking where the foreigners are going.

Then, as we get to the town’s perimeter, the atmosphere and mood at the checkpoints change. The checkpoints are much more heavy-duty, there are many more military personnel and there’s much more military hardware on show around the outskirts of the city. ‘No problem, no problem,’ says our driver. ‘Everything good.’ He takes us a circuitous route round the back, round the west, then the south. I like this man. He reminds me of my grandfather. He is gentle and wise and always charmingly polite, but he’s not going to be pushed around.

We’re stopped each time and asked several questions by the soldiers guarding the checkpoints. We explain we are guests of the government and the driver is questioned over and over again. Each time we have our hearts in our mouths, trying not to look anxious but desperately trying to work out the body language and the nuance of the conversations. I can hear the driver saying ‘Sky News’ a lot and ‘British’ and waving the permission letter. Whatever he says, he is convincing and we are allowed through. Martin notices we are one of the few vehicles heading into Zawiya. Most of the traffic is heading out of the city. And those who are fleeing are being given what looks like a pretty hard time. One family with young children is standing outside their vehicle looking on while the soldiers tear their belongings off the roof where they’ve been loaded, and throw them all over the ground as part of the ‘checking’ process.

Finally, we are inside Zawiya. The streets are empty but Martin still reminds the driver to remove his pro-Gaddafi poster. We are in rebel territory now, or so we believe. No point taking chances. The driver nods appreciatively and stuffs it into his footwell. We can hear the distant rumble of shouting. We hear the sound just a few seconds before we see a wave of people marching over the brow in the distance. Our driver stops. They are so far away I can’t quite work out what it is they are waving. Are they flags or weapons? And what flags are they marching under? Who are they?

Then, we see the rebels’ tricolour, the Libyan flag before Colonel Gaddafi’s coup in 1969, before he toppled King Idris and replaced it with his own all-green version. I jump out of the car at the same time as Martin is unravelling his legs and grabbing his camera gear. ‘Shall I stay with the taxi?’ says Tim. ‘No, take everything,’ I say. By this time the old man is very agitated. ‘No, no, come back. Danger, danger!’ he’s shouting. ‘It’s OK, don’t worry, we’re just going to see what’s happening. Wait for us, please,’ I reply.

We walk quickly towards the crowd of advancing protesters, wondering how they’re going to react to us. This is the city filled with youngsters who have been duped into ‘destruction and sabotage with drugs and alcohol’, according to Gaddafi. I look back and I see the driver doing a panicky, fast three-point turn to get out of the way of these rowdy rebels. I hope he’s finding somewhere round the corner to park.

And then the crowd is upon us. There’s a few seconds of nervousness as we wait to see how they react. But straight away they are welcoming. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ a few of them say in broken English. ‘Come, come.’ They are loud, they are angry and there are lots and lots of them. At first we think there are just a few hundred but soon we see, as the crowd snakes round corners and along streets, there are many more, running into thousands. We’re walking very quickly to keep up with them. It is steaming hot and within minutes we are sweating and puffing. The temperature has got to be in the high thirties now. The protesters are mostly on foot and the bulk of them are unarmed. In fact, they keep coming up and saying to us: ‘Look, Gaddafi said we had weapons. Where are the weapons?’

I spot a man holding a rifle and make a point of interviewing him, asking him why he has a weapon. ‘Defence,’ he says. There is a van driving very slowly in the middle of the crowd with men hanging out of it. We jump on – partly so Martin can film as we’re moving along, partly to have a breather. One of the men clinging onto the frame of the open door is holding a small pistol. But these are exceptions in a sea of marchers. The rest of them don’t even have sticks or stones, nothing at all.

They are mourning the loss of one of the rebel leaders, whom they have just buried in the city’s Martyrs’ Square. He has been shot by a Gaddafi sniper. They’re terrified of the snipers – of all the Gaddafi men who are inside the town – but they’re also furious.

‘Tell the world,’ one man says as we’re filming. ‘Please tell the world. We need help.’ ‘What help?’ I ask. ‘What do you want anyone to do?’ ‘We need the international community to help.’ Young boys are jumping up and down rather annoyingly in front of Martin’s camera lens. It’s an occupational hazard. There are children too here on this march but no women, no females at all except for me.

They are heading towards the Gaddafi tanks, which are parked beneath the underpass and blocking the exit to Tripoli. We drop back a little. We don’t want to be right at the front when they meet up with Gaddafi’s army. Several hundred marchers go past us. I notice an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back of a pick-up truck which is driving along with us. ‘It’s one of ours,’ one of the men tells me. ‘We have had defections from the Gaddafi army and they brought some weapons.’

Then, suddenly, there is the familiar crackle of machine-gun fire. It’s coming from the direction of the Gaddafi tanks. At first the crowd don’t really react but, as the shooting continues, all of a sudden men are running back, running away from the firing which just keeps on going on and on. Men are being shot in the back as they’re scrambling to get away. They’re collapsing on the intersection; they’re dropping as bullets hit them on the concrete flyover which straddles the tanks underneath. There are so many of them sprinting away that we are in danger of being knocked down in this bull-run stampede.

We duck behind a wall which offers us a little protection as the crowds run past and the bullets follow. ‘Crawfie, we’ve got to get the fuck out of here,’ says Martin. He’s thinking, the tanks will be on us next, on us all. The soldiers will be coming on down this road, charging after the protesters. Then we have no chance. ‘Stay here, stay behind this wall.’ I’m panting. ‘We’ll just get caught up with the crowd if we run with them.’

We’re cowering behind our wall but Martin can see through his camera that the people on the bridge who are trying to recover their injured friends are being shot at. He’s giving me a running commentary. I can see several figures lying on the ground ahead but they are too far away to make out exactly what’s going on. ‘They’ve been hit,’ Martin says. ‘Other guys are trying to bring them here.’ There’s still so much shooting that they are crawling along the road to reach their friends, too scared to stand upright. Several times they are driven back by the shooting but they keep edging farther on their stomachs, determined to reach the still bodies. A car reverses at speed up the embankment to reach one of them and bundles him into the back and then tears down the road again towards us, bullets flying past it. Ambulances scream down the road to pick up more of the wounded and they are fired on as well. This is a massacre.

All over the place people are falling and being hit. The firing is indiscriminate and relentless, so relentless. Men are running for their lives, shoes scattering as they frantically try to escape the shooting. A few shout to us as they pass: ‘This is Gaddafi!’ and ‘Look what he does to us!’ Several are furious, yelling at us, anyone who will listen. Others seem to be in shock, scurrying past but with no real direction, constantly glancing over their shoulders at the tanks and soldiers behind, still firing. The rebel anti-aircraft weapon is driven up and fires towards the tanks. We’re both startled it’s actually shooting. It makes a tremendous noise because it’s so close. It fires off a volley of shots, but that almost immediately backfires dramatically. It just draws more fire from the Gaddafi lines. People are still running past us. We’re just watching, clinging to our wall, tucked in close to each other as this scene of mad, terrified panic goes on. With this amount of shooting, there must be many more casualties than those actually right in front of us. We can see several, but the flyover is obscuring our view and we don’t want to venture out into the middle of the road where the bullets are spitting.

Yet more cars are driving past, screeching past, bundling the injured inside and driving off. We have to get to the hospital. A man is staggering towards us, a bullet wound in his chest. He’s being held up and helped by two friends, one either side. They’re half dragging, half carrying him. An ambulance pulls up and Martin just follows the injured man, who is muttering, ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is great). He climbs in and I pile in after him. I look back and see Tim on the pavement. ‘I’ll see you at the hospital,’ he shouts.

This is the first time we have seen any first-hand evidence of Gaddafi forces firing on predominantly unarmed civilians, the first time we have ourselves witnessed the cruelty of the regime. And it is cruel. It feels ugly and evil and very one-sided. I feel reluctant to mention (although I am duty-bound to do so) the very small number of weapons we have seen in a crowd of several thousand protesters because it seems to give the wrong impression. These were almost all unarmed, defenceless people, just marching, just shouting. What sort of a man, what sort of a leader, what sort of a regime orders the shooting of hundreds of his own countrymen, even children? This isn’t crowd control. This isn’t anything but shooting to kill and maim and injure and terrify. It’s difficult to feel anything but sympathy and fear for these defenceless people.

Once the ambulance doors shut, it’s quiet. All we can hear is the sound of the injured man’s harsh breathing and his gasps of ‘Allahu Akbar’. His friend is crouched over him, trying to lift his clothes to see the wound. We can all see a round, bloody hole where the bullet has entered his chest. There are no medics in the ambulance, only two or three protesters who are trying to calm the man and urging the driver to go faster, faster.

The doors are flung open and there is a wave of noise. We tumble out of the back of the ambulance into a big crowd outside the hospital entrance. Among them are medics who pull the man onto a stretcher and he is whisked along inside to the emergency room. I’m surprised at how many people are in the hospital, how they have managed to get here so quickly. It is packed, packed with the injured, packed with mourners. Everywhere Martin points his camera, there are men with bullet wounds, wounds all down their backs, bullet holes in their arms, in their chests. Some of them look like pellets. One man lying on his stomach has dozens of pellet holes all over his shoulders and his back. A nurse comes up to us. Another woman at last. ‘This is Gaddafi. Look how he treats his people. This is Gaddafi!’ she is shouting.

Men are crying, hugging each other. There is no room to move anywhere. There are so many people, either injured or tending to the injured, but also worried friends and relatives and volunteers who just want to help in whatever way they can. Everyone is in a state of shock. One doctor in particular starts talking to us, taking us from ward to ward, helping us communicate with the patients. ‘Look at these wounds,’ he says. He is furious. ‘This is a shoot-to-kill policy. They are not trying to frighten people. They are trying to kill them.’

It looks like that to us too. We’re taken all around the hospital to see the random casualties – a man who was going to work, a woman out shopping, a child sitting on the doorstep of his home – all sprayed with bullets, shot by snipers, hit by Gaddafi troops. The intensive care unit is full too. Many of the injured have been shot through the head.

The doctor who has been taking a keen interest in us asks where we are going to stay. He is reluctant to give us his full name and asks us to call him Dr M. He is not alone in feeling wary about being seen on television and being tracked down by the Libyan secret police or the military at some later date. ‘It’s too late to try to leave Zawiya now,’ he says. ‘Even I am not going to my home. You’ll never get through the checkpoints. Do you have transport?’ Oh my God, the taxi driver! Where is he? Tim has joined us at the hospital by now and has been asking around for the taxi driver. No one has seen him. There aren’t any taxis at all in town right now.

Everything is not good.

The doctor says there is a hotel where we can stay. A hotel? Really? ‘Yes, it’s quite good. It is four-star. You will be safe there.’ He tells us the Gaddafi forces sometimes come into the hospital to fetch their wounded and dead. We don’t like the sound of that. The hotel it is, then. He says we’ll be taken by some of the fighters. It sounds unbelievably appealing. By now a few of the rebel fighters have heard about the foreign journalists in the hospital and have made themselves known to us. One is a big lad who talks with a slight American accent but who is half Irish. He is only 19 but seems to be well connected with the rebel ‘leadership’. He says his name is Tareg. His father is Libyan and his mother Irish. He is Muslim and has been schooled at the International School of Martyrs in Tripoli. His family also has a home in Wales. He tells us they have set up a ten-man council in Zawiya, headed by men from the military who have defected. But so far I have not seen any soldiers. They all seem to be civilians, all ordinary people from Zawiya who have found themselves caught up in a civil war.

‘We will arrange an escort,’ says Dr M. He tells us he lives in Canada, works as a surgeon there and only came back to Libya for a break. He has a family home here just outside the centre of Zawiya but he came to the hospital to help out when he heard there were lots of casualties. Now he seems to be running the place and looking after us to boot. For him it has become the most intense of working holidays. He seems alert but mellow, very at ease here and totally unfazed. He is with his young son, who is about 17 and wants to be a doctor too.

We’re taken outside. In the hospital car park, for the first time, we see regulation soldiers. They are wearing uniforms – filthy dirty uniforms admittedly – and they’re carrying weapons. There are about three or four of them. OK, I’m thinking, now this looks like the rebel ‘army’ we’ve been hearing about. With our new escorts, we suddenly feel emboldened. They have vehicles arranged and we set off in convoy through the city centre towards Martyrs’ Square. The doctor is following with his son in their car. I am asking them how much control they have of Zawiya. ‘We control virtually the whole city,’ the driver says. ‘They [Gaddafi forces] are mostly on the outskirts.’

As we near the Square, we can see roadblocks have been built by the rebels. There are military vehicles being used as obstacles along the road. There are a few armed men manning the checkpoints but, as soon as they see the rebel soldiers, we are waved through. In the Square there are many more men, some of them chanting. There are a few soldiers among them. The crowd we were with earlier must have retreated here. There is also a small mosque in the Square and the mosque’s loudspeakers are being used to rally the crowd and fill them with courage. Some people are holding hand-written messages scribbled on cardboard which say: ‘No Al Kayda here.’ It is in response to Gaddafi’s claim that the rebellion is promoted by Al Qaeda fighters high on what he called hallucinogenic drugs.

At the far corner of the Square there is an eight-storey building with barricades around it and armed men at the two side entrances. ‘The hotel?’ I ask with a sinking feeling. Yes, it’s the hotel. But the Zawiya Jewel Hotel has been taken over by the rebels and now it’s not so much a hotel as the rebels’ military headquarters. This is not good. We might not have been all that safe at the hospital but we’re going to be staying in the one place that Gaddafi’s soldiers will be pointing their tanks and guns at.

The hotel feels largely empty. There are lots of dark corridors and there seems to be very little electricity. We’re taken up to the seventh floor. They’ve opened up all the interconnecting doors so the rooms melt into one. The balcony overlooks the Square, with the mosque on the left. One of the soldiers closes the curtains and tells us to keep them closed if we are going to use any lights at all. ‘Snipers,’ he says. Tim and I decide we have to find out where the exits are. We need to know how to get out in a hurry if the Gaddafi forces attack. We need to know where to run to, how to disappear if we have to; that’s if we get a chance.

It’s dark now and even Dr M is looking worried. ‘I think we go as soon as it is light in the morning. You can come with me,’ he says. ‘I will take you to my house.’ Thank you. Thank you, good doctor. That sounds like the only plan.

Tim and I go downstairs to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the hotel. When we get to the basement we find the only back door is locked and, worse still, in the room next to the exit there is a man lying on a stretcher. He is attached to a drip but is being guarded by another man who is armed with an AK-47. The man lying down is wearing the green fatigues of the Gaddafi military. I think this is what they call the worst-case scenario: we are not only in the rebels’ headquarters but they have prisoners here too, prisoners whom the Gaddafi regime may well want to try to rescue. Or eliminate. The captive is not responding to questions anyway. I ask where he is from, how he came to be taken prisoner and what he was doing. But no, he will only reply there has been a mistake, he is not a sniper, he was only trying to defend himself. The rebel guarding him is pretty exasperated with the answers too. ‘He just keeps saying the same thing over and over,’ he tells me. ‘He is a liar.’ I quickly take a picture of him on my BlackBerry but the rebels are unhappy at this so I stop.

We go back upstairs and tell Martin the news. Little fazes Martin. He is a six-foot-three Irishman from a large family, brought up in County Down during the quaintly titled ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. He grew up in a mixed area where Protestants and Catholics jostled each other and even children were accustomed to the place being mortared and were not surprised by the attempts to blow up the British Army stationed there. Martin is bursting with natural charm and has a keen sense of humour. He’s a seasoned cameraman who has been to a host of war zones, including Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Bosnia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and many others. At this very moment he’s more worried about power. He has a limited amount of juice in his camera’s battery, and we haven’t brought chargers for our ‘day’ trip. No batteries mean no camera and no pictures – and we don’t want that. But he downloads the pictures he has already taken onto the laptop we have brought with us. His memory cards are now ready to be refilled with fresh pictures.

The doctor tells us the rebels are organizing food for us. Great. We haven’t eaten all day. We sit talking to them. It is difficult to get a sense of how many rebels there are as we stay in one room and people keep coming in and out – mostly to rubberneck the foreign journalists. They express their gratitude to us for being with them and talk about the battle. The men are all defectors, and most have been in the Gaddafi army for at least ten years. They seem to be around early to mid-thirties. I ask to see ID just out of interest and they produce their army identification cards with photos. They are Libyans and an example of the defectors we’ve heard about. I take pictures of them on my BlackBerry as we don’t want to run down our camera batteries. Also there is very little light and Martin doesn’t think any pictures he takes on his camera will be very clear. At this stage we are just thinking ‘conserve energy’. We have no idea what’s around the corner. The men seem friendly enough. Their clothes are grubby and worn, though. Most are wearing what look like very old army uniforms which haven’t seen a decent wash in quite some time. Their hair is straggly and, overall, they look like they have been living rough for a while. But they’re chirpy enough, answering my questions with good humour.

For them the turning point, they tell us, was when they were ordered to fire on civilians, fellow Libyans. They have little love for Gaddafi, whom they seem to think is quite mad, deranged. They ask about us, about Sky News. They assume I must be married to either Tim or Martin and are a little shocked when I say neither. But what does your husband think? How on earth does he feel about you working with men who are not even relatives? This would raise eyebrows among much of the Muslim population. Does he mind you going away so much? Have you children? Who looks after them? It is all a foreign world to them.

The food is taking so long and we are shattered. I think I am going to try to get some sleep because I know we will be up in a few hours and on the move again. I excuse myself and take off to the adjoining room and the big, double bed waiting there. I say to Martin and Tim: ‘There’s plenty of room. Please don’t sleep on the floor.’ Tim has absolutely no intention of sleeping on the floor, but it’s going to be very cosy with three of us on the bed. Martin decides to bite the bullet and take his chances with the rebels. He ends up in another room with a bed all to himself. Lucky devil. What our hosts make of this arrangement is anybody’s guess.

Later the doctor wakes us up when the food arrives. It’s past midnight. None of us feels much like eating now but the doctor is insistent. The rebels have gone to a lot of trouble. No is not an option. We struggle up and sleepily eat our way through a bowl full of rice and a red mixture with chunks of meat and pasta floating in it. It’s actually quite delicious. I never really got a clear explanation how they managed to rustle this up but it seemed to involve a bit of a journey and a fair amount of preparation given the time it took. We flop back to sleep as soon as we have bolted our food.

The rebels fire rockets throughout the night. It seems to be a message to the Gaddafi forces sitting outside the town – we’re not asleep and we’re not going anywhere. Don’t even think about attacking us.