The residents of Murzuq – southern Libya – who left their houses a couple of days ago, as Chadian groups seized controlled of the town, had bitterly talked about the demographic change happening to Murzuq with the advent of Chadians who settled in the Libyan town without possessing official identification documents.
According to testimonies obtained by 218TV, the fears of a large majority of Murzuq residents have been materialized.
Native Murzuq residents feared after February 17 revolution suspicious movements taking place in their town and nearby areas by other ethnic groups which had been trying to increase their numbers by bridging southern Libya to northern Chad.
Consequently, this long-feared nightmarish idea has started to become a reality piecemeal so that Murzuq native residents ended up displaced by force by groups from Chadian rebel movement along with their tribal relatives within Murzuq.
Speaking to 218TV, some Murzuq residents chocked out their words as they expressed how mandatory it was for them to leave their houses after the latest developments in the town two days ago, thus relocating to other areas such as Wadi Utbah in order to avoid the artillery shelling that shook Murzuq Castle off.
This was a plan, the residents say, that was plotted on many angles; a political one that saw the Presidential Council involved in it – according to officials at Murzuq municipality – as it had armed the so-called South Protection Force, in addition to a social, demographic, and geographic angle that aimed at readjusting the population of not only Murzuq but also other cities and towns in southern Libya.
Residents from Murzuq also talked about a similar issue that was mentioned by Al-Kufra and Sabha residents earlier; that is the demographic change because the number of Chadians who opposed border demarcation increased since they thought they had been deprived of the social coexistence. However; international laws and conventions don’t permit any country to violate the laws and sovereignty of its neighboring country, which makes those invading groups real criminals.
Murzuq residents, who have populated the vast desert now, have been left facing a bitter reality that sees them defending their town from others who are trying to win by increasing their numbers, which is an alarming predicament that could see the issue escalating not only in Murzuq but also in the entire southern region that is forgotten by state officials.
