On one side of the dusty road to Mill Slum, Wardama area, five kilometers away from the city of Bayda (200 km east of Benghazi), garbage bags are piled. On the left, stands the old mill that had originally been formed of prefabricated houses inhabited by workers of a German company that had worked in the mill for decades before it left more than 15 years ago.

On one side of the dusty road to Mill Slum, Wardama area, five kilometers away from the city of Bayda (200 km east of Benghazi), garbage bags are piled. On the left, stands the old mill that had originally been formed of prefabricated houses inhabited by workers of a German company that had worked in the mill for decades before it left more than 15 years ago.

The empty houses were distributed to the Libyans working in the mill, who turned every inch of the slum into a place for housing, including the food tin warehouses and kitchens, because they did not have a shelter in this vast and rich country.

With an aggravated housing crisis in the region, heads of many homeless families built tin houses inside the slum, until it gradually grew to its current situation.

While there are always new buyers for these dilapidated houses, the slum infrastructure is getting worse; sewage is discharged behind houses without disposal.

Bad conditions

“Although the mill no longer operates, rats still come from it, and their smell inside my house has made my son sick,” said Ghaith Qassim who has been living in the slum for nine years, adding that, “Adhesives used for rat catching are everywhere inside my house.”

Suleiman Mohammed said the wooden roof of his house was damaged by rain and leaked badly, and water even entered from below the walls. “They get sick due to the severe cold,” he said while pointing to his children.  

His neighbor Abu Bakr Salheen, who has been living in the slum for 10 years, complained of the sanitation truck’s inability to access the septic tank of his house, which prompted him to discharge sewage behind it.

When asked about visits by officials, Mohammed replied, “The local council has registered our names in lists and we are still waiting. We do not want to break into state institutions or close roads. The revolution is less than three years old and patience is good, but we see that money is spent in unknown ways.”

Mohammed and Salheen are two victims of the public sector companies – many of which went bankrupt in the 1990s – and receive aid from a government investment portfolio that provides irregular aid to such people.

Rented cottages

Despite miserable living conditions, Mohammed and Salheen said they were better off than the second section of the slum on the left of the mill, where the population were tenants rather than owners.

Some newly built houses along the main road were blocking that second section, as if they had been afraid that those cottages would distort the general scene. People of the cottages of that section said six cottages were burned during the winter, which was not surprising since random electricity connections were obvious characteristics of the slum.

Fawzi Ali, a father of three children, who rents a house surrounded by electricity cables that only rises two meters above the ground, said, “For nine years, I have been paying 80 dinars (US $63) as the monthly rent of a tin house. Drinking water comes once every ten days, only after owners of the houses located on the main road turn off their electric pumps.”

Residents complained of leaking roofs, reptiles and mice, as well as dogs that forced them every evening to remain home. They also said they were forced to discharge sewage behind cottages due to no sewerage or septic tanks.

Behind one of those cottages where the sewage is discharged in the open, kids were raising stray cats. There, amid the malodors, Idris Saad said the slum residents filed several complaints to the officials, some of which dated back to 2003.

Saad has been paying 100 dinars (US $78) as a monthly rent of a tin house for 13 years. He said during his visits to officials’ offices, he received many promises to house them in apartments that were under construction. According to him, the apartments were built and distributed, but only a small number of needy people like him got a new apartment. “Since the revolution, I have gone to Bayda Local Council several times, but I have not received any response and the council has not visited us so far,” he added.

Primitive electricty source

Tense situation

At the city local council, the situation was tense and asking about the fate of dwellers of tin houses and slums increased tension. Council member Musa Arifi was in his office surrounded by people, including elderly women, complaining about negligence and describing how their sons had sacrificed their lives during the revolution. Arifi explained that housing was the basic problem afflicting the city, attributing it to the fact that the former regime did not develop any master plans as of 1979 on the plea of being a tourist area, and disrupted new master plans due to the outbreak of the revolution.

Prospective solutions

Arifi said the council formed a committee that identified 921 families living in cottages in the slums of “Tawarea” and “Shaher Roho” and owners of the cottages that were removed by the state to re-house them in healthy houses.

“We submitted those names to the prime ministry which later granted us its approval to give them loans of 120,000 dinars (US $94,000) to buy houses,” he added.

But those people’s inability to provide guarantees for the loans has constituted a legal obstacle the prime ministry legal committee is working on resolving it. According to Arifi, the prime ministry has promised to overcome the obstacle during a short time.

Arifi said only six out of the forty families from the Mill Slum would get loans because their homes were burnt completely. He explained that the number of the families in need of housing in the city was 7,000, what prompted them to start with the most needy families.

When asked about what would ensure that these loans reach eligible applicants in a country where the poor complained that they did not benefit from its wealth, he answered, “The local council has provided the prime ministry with a proposal to adopt the points system to solve the housing problem, where the priority in the provision of housing depends on the householder’s monthly salary, number of family members, urgent need, and the families of the martyrs and the disabled.”