Mayo native Lisa Ruane and her Roscommon boyfriend Fintan Coen enjoyed a cup of tea on Monday in the comfort of Lisa’s home in Belcarra. As they looked back over the events of the previous week - their terrifying ordeal trying to flee from war torn Libya - the reality of what they had been through was sinking in.
And while they managed to escape the country thanks to help from a Libyan friend and a German pilot, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland was no help.
Both working in Libya as teachers, they never expected the ‘day of rage’ on February 17 to escalate to such proportions. Without her passport or the required visas, Lisa was terrified she would never be allowed to leave the country.
When asked why they chose to work in Libya Fintan replied: “Why anywhere? There was nothing left in Ireland so we were left with no choice. The choice was made for us really.”
The school they were recruited to in Libya follow the Irish Leaving Cert curriculum - the only school outside Ireland to do so. “They were recruiting Irish teachers. I applied and got the job as an English teacher in the secondary school, packed my bags with all my hopes and dreams in September,” Fintan told the Mayo Advertiser.
Lisa did not join Fintan until after Christmas when she began teaching in the primary school, and the couple lived on the school grounds until the revolt by the citizens of Libya became too terrifying and dangerous forcing them to flee.
At first Libya posed a culture shock to Fintan. “There was no social scene. You hear the call to prayer five times a day and all the Muslims get their prayer mats out. And of course it’s very hot - the hottest country on the planet they say,” explained Fintan.
Beautiful scenery
Lisa was very impressed with the school upon arrival. However she was surprised with the children who she found to be very Americanised. But Fintan reminded her: “This was the creme de la creme of Libyans. The average Libyan wouldn’t be wearing American style clothes. They would be wearing white robes and burkas.”
Lisa described a beautiful city on the Mediterranean coast but they were shocked with how little respect the Libyans had for the beautiful beaches where they often dumped household waste such as washing machines.
Lisa was teaching two of Gadafy’s grandchildren - a boy and girl. “They wouldn’t put any Libyan teachers teaching this class because obviously Libyan people would be trying to get in with that family. I just treated them the same as everyone else. You’d know they were a bit above. She was a little madam and all the girls wanted to be her friend. He couldn’t do anything without the bodyguards.”
There were 16 Irish teachers in total in the school and they had heard of the ‘day of rage’ a month before it happened. But they never thought it would escalate to the extent that it has. According to Fintan: “Everyone used to say that Libyans were too lazy and there is no way these people are going to take to the streets in any day of rage.”
Social life for the west of Ireland couple was going out for dinner at the weekend or enjoying the city centre markets. Alcohol was banned so they would gather together with their Irish and international friends in each others’ houses.
As the ‘day of rage’ neared Fintan checked with home to see if there was anything in the news about it here but his family had heard nothing. “Everyone thought it would be just one day because these Libyans have no weapons. We thought we’d just stay inside. We had that week off work,” explained Lisa.
Most of their colleagues were going to Malta for the religious holiday Malud - the birth of Mohammed, but the school refused to return Lisa her passport and she still had no resident visa. They kept telling her it was in immigration being processed, so they decided to stay in Libya and go to the desert or on a tour.
On the Wednesday, the day before the day of rage, the couple were going to fly to Benghazi. “We were nearly packing our bags and getting ready to go when we got a call from one of our friends who said, “Put on the news - CNN and BBC. Trouble in Benghazi. Riots start today.” A day early. We were thinking of chancing it anyway but we didn’t. Next day we heard there had been 200 people killed in Benghazi. We knew then it was more serious than we thought. But everyone was saying it wasn’t going to come to Tripoli because Tripoli was the capital and a richer city. The eastern side of the country don’t like Gadafy whereas in Tripoli they all love him,” said Lisa.
With 70 per cent of Libyan men either in the army or police force. Gadafy had kept them on side for decades but they were beginning to turn against him.
“They have no equal rights, no freedom, the country is corrupt,” Fintan explained. “All the money they were making off oil wasn’t coming down to the lower classes. If it was shared out every citizen could be a millionaire. That’s six million people. But he was sending it to other African countries to other dictators and keeping it all in Swiss bank accounts for himself and his own right hand men.”
During the ‘day of rage’ they stayed in school which was run by Gadafy’s people. So even when the situation worsened, the school kept telling the Irish couple everything was OK.
People revolt
On the ‘day of rage’ shop keepers were wearing green head gear in support of Gadafy and the streets were lined with thousands of people (whom he was paying ) to welcome him. But over the weekend everyone turned against him.
Beforehand people were afraid to even mention his name. Now they were saying their leader was a liar. There was a huge shift in sentiment.
With a lot of the teachers still in Malta, Lisa and Fintan were stuck in Libya without Lisa’s passport and visa. It was getting violent at night time. “You could hear people chanting on the streets. You could hear gun shots. And on the Sunday you could feel the tear gas coming in through the windows. We knew things were getting pretty bad. There was about 10 of us left,” said Fintan. Then the shops stopped opening.
The couple knew they should not have been in school on Sunday and Lisa feared for the children’s safety as it could have been a target given Gadafy’s involvement.
That evening, while giving a private lesson in the home of a Libyan family, one of the teachers realised the extent of the trouble. When she arrived at the house the family told her Tripoli was safe, but only an hour and a half later they were running around the house and packing their bags to escape.
But Lisa and Fintan could not go to the airport without her passport.
The following morning they received a text from the principal saying “school is closed stay safe”.
“Fintan went up and demanded my passport. We had joined the British embassy a few days before that so Fintan rang them and explained our situation. But there was no way we could get out without an exit visa, never mind a passport. He got my passport back, opened it up, nothing on it. They had it for six weeks and I was supposed to have got a resident’s visa. So technically I was working there illegally because I had no visa so I was afraid I would get arrested at the airport, never mind trying to get out.”
An Irish colleague, Oisín O Nualláin, who was in Ireland getting mock papers to bring back to the school, was ringing them at all hours of the morning telling them to leave the school grounds.
A Libyan woman called Rhonda who used to work in the school had told the Irish if they ever needed help to contact her.
“Luckily one of the lads, John, had her number. In a panic on the Monday morning we rang her. She lives in Tripoli and sent a car for us. We packed our bags and said goodbye to the rest of the people there,” recounted Lisa.
“Oisín was at home in the meantime having meetings with the Department of Foreign Affairs. He went in to them on the Saturday morning and told them they needed to get us out,” continued Lisa.
“They said go down to eBookers.com and don’t be annoying us. Oisín was trying to tell them how serious it was. He said you need to send a plane. They said it wasn’t cost effective to send a plane over,” Fintan said. At the same time he was emailing the Irish consulate in Rome and asking them what the Irish Government was doing. He was told to book flights on the internet and to use his common sense but, as Fintan explained, normally in Tripoli you can’t book flights over the internet, you have to use a travel agent or buy them at the airport. “And our phones were blocked. We could text out but we weren’t receiving texts. Even the people in Malta were in contact with us on Skype and they had been trying to ring us all day but they couldn’t get through,” Lisa explained.
The night they were in Rhonda’s house the electricity kept going off. This generous woman was trying to organise people in the airport to give them the exit stamps they needed.
“Only for her there was no way we would have got through the airport,” said Lisa.
Shooting on the streets
This was Monday night and there were soldiers killing people on the road outside, yet the Irish consulate was telling the Irish to use their common sense to get to the airport.
“It was being called a genocide on CNN at this stage and these were the replies these people were sending to us,” said Fintan.
At the airport the following morning they met a scene of chaos. After standing in a stagnant queue for four hours they were at their wits’ end.
“Two Libyan men were swinging their batons to get the crowd back from the door but they were being very extreme about it. They were hand picking certain people to get in - just women and children. He saw us queuing and not causing any trouble and he picked us and Fintan said go. You might as well go inside. Inside was chaos too. Our friends at home had been trying to get us on an Austrian military flight so we were looking for Austrian delegates. We were told by airport staff there were no tickets, no flights, and the airport was shutting down at 1pm. This was 12 noon,” continued Lisa.
“At least we were inside. I was waiting at the doors for the lads to get in. My colleague Deirdre saw a man in uniform with people around him. He looked like a pilot. She went up to listen in. He said ‘I have a plane. There are 55 seats left. They are trying to make me leave now but I’m not leaving until the plane is full. I’m going to take a list of names and you have to come with me now’.”
It was another ordeal to be allowed out to get their male colleagues, but after much pleading and crying they were all reunited. Then they had to pay money to bribe the Libyans to get onto the plane.
It was now 1.10pm and there were rumours Gadafy was going to bomb the airport.
When they got to immigration Lisa was afraid she would get arrested but like a knight in shining armour Rhonda’s friend called them to the top of the queue and stamped her passport.
However Fintan and three others had been split from the group.
“We had gone through security so we had nowhere to go but on the plane,” Lisa continued. “I was in bits thinking I had left him behind. What was I going to tell his family? The flight attendants were wondering is this girl not happy she is on the plane.” Thankfully half an hour later they were all reunited on the plane.
It was now 3.30pm. An hour into the flight the pilot informed them that Tripoli airport was closed.
They landed in Istanbul where they met a women from the Irish consulate in Turkey. But despite having no money the Irish consulate could not afford to pay for their flights home so they had to arrange payment from family back home.
Looking back the couple are extremely angry at the inaction by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland which has since claimed it got them home. “The only reason we got out was because we had a Libyan friend to help us and because we met a German pilot with a good heart,” said Lisa.
