Ghazala Aqqouri, 43, is bound to a wheelchair but she is not used to being still.  A paralympic athlete from Benghazi, Aqqouri dreams of winning gold in Rio’s Paralympics but a lack of funding might force her and her team to again sit out the competition like they did during the Malaysia Cup and Fazza Championships in Dubai early this year. “The lack of support will not limit my everlasting ambition,” she says defiantly.

Deadline approaching

 Ghazala Aqqouri, 43, is bound to a wheelchair but she is not used to being still.  A paralympic athlete from Benghazi, Aqqouri dreams of winning gold in Rio’s Paralympics but a lack of funding might force her and her team to again sit out the competition like they did during the Malaysia Cup and Fazza Championships in Dubai early this year. “The lack of support will not limit my everlasting ambition,” she says defiantly.

Deadline approaching

Having won the gold medal in the 1996 Maghreb Athletics Championship, Aqqouri has no club in which to train since she belongs to Manara, a club that only exits on paper.

Director of the Libyan Olympic Committee (LOC) Community Media Abdussalam Shlebek says Manara is one of five Libyan clubs for people with special needs, four of which have not been created due to a lack of allocated budgets. “The fifth club is based in Tripoli and it too lacks most elements of a sports club for people with disabilities,” he says.

Head of the Supreme Technical Athletics Committee Izzeddine Belaid says that there are approximately 500 Libyan athletes with disabilities, many of whom have been deprived of participating in tournaments. “They should be supported by the Libyan state,” he says.

“It is shameful that Libyan officials do nothing while Libyan champions pay their travel expenses out of their own pockets,” says Belaid, referring to Sharjah Championship this past March where athletes covered their own expenses. He worries that the registration deadline in the Rio Paralympics ends this month and the Libyan team could make it if the budget allocated is disbursed. “It however seems that they will not participate,” he concluded.

String of setbacks

Head of the Paralympic Committee (PC) Khalid Rqibi suggests administrative clutter, random organization and political fragmentation in Libya as reasons for denying visas to Libyans athletes who strongly wanted to participate in the Dubai-based Fazza Championship, which caused them another setback.

“The dream of athletes is crashing before their eyes and we cannot do anything for them,” he says. “Some are not permitted to participate next year because of their age, which caused frustration, yet officials do not care.”

Mussab Gharsallah, a 26-year-old team and his team kept training in preparation for the World Championship in Dubai since returning from the Congo tournament in mid-2015, but the denial of their visa application by the organizing committee crushed them. “Why is this happening with us?” He wondered frustrated.

Everything is stopped

Rqibi claims that the situation of these athletes is unlike that of footballers since the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) cares for the latter more than it does others. “The Libyan Audit Bureau allocated a budget for people with special needs but the MoYS only gave funds to some football clubs.

Like other Libyans, Rqibi and the athletes he oversees are waiting for the new government, which is yet to be approved by the parliament. “Everything has stopped now,” says Rqibi referring to the Presidential Council’s decision to freeze all ministerial accounts.

Nonetheless, even before freezing the accounts, athletes with special needs did not receive any support. “”We have not received support for years,” says Mustafa Dinali, the Benghazi Sports Bureau Official.

In a meeting with LOC head Jamal Zarrouq last week, head of the Government of National Accord, Presidential Council Fayez Sarraj promised to provide financial support to the athletes to participate in the Olympics.

Moral support

The lack of financial support is not the only obstacle. In an unsupportive society, Aqqouri and her friend Sahar Ghnemy, 35, who comes from Tripoli, are harshly criticized because to some people “sport is not for women, especially women with disabilities. Although we are titleholders, moral support is still totally absent,” says Ghnemy. “I call on all social segments to think with me not about me.”

The team’s coach Omar Shbeek says all these obstacles affect the athletes psychologically, which has a direct impact on their performance levels. “The media also contributes to the lack of social support since they do not shed light on athletes’ rights and participation,” says Shlebek.

Appeal to philanthropists

The Libyan team’s coach Abdurrahim Zwai said the team has lost many opportunities that could have significantly contributed to their physical and psychological development. “We have lost agreements with German sports institutions, such as The Franz Beckenbauer Foundation, which supports people with special needs, because the Libyan state did not approve to pay the tokenish contributions,” he says.

Zwai believes that the only way to support his team is an appeal to charitable people and businessmen. “The Sports Authority has not given the PC its funds and we do not want our champions to lose even more,” he says.