Outside a travel agency, a Bangladeshi man slowly sweeps the steps. It could be Saudi Arabia. He wears the same blue uniform and sweeps in the same slow, methodical way, brush and pan in hand. Except that this is not Jeddah or Riyadh. It is Benghazi.
Like Saudi Arabia, Libya too employed large amounts of expatriates to do most of the hard work — cleaning the streets, working in restaurants and hospitals, in factories, slaughterhouses and as farmers and drivers — over 1.5 million of them.
Most were from sub-Saharan Africa, especially from Mali, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and elsewhere in West Africa. Or from Egypt, especially the farmers; there were at least 600,000 of them. There were also Filipinos, Indians and Pakistanis. Most of them were professionals — nurses, teachers, engineers, IT specialists and the like. But there were no Pakistani laborers for example, or no Indian taxi drivers. In fact there were no foreign taxi drivers at all; that was and is still very much a Libyan monopoly.
Readers will note the past tense is being used. It has to be. Most expatriates in Libya left early on during the uprising that finally toppled Muammar Qaddafi on Aug. 21 when his forces fled Tripoli.
Not all left. Some were unable to go. Others decided to stay on, either because they wanted to help or because there might be difficulties returning to Libya after the conflict was over. That was the case for a number of Filipinos.
Continue reading at Arab News
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