IRISH IN LIBYA:A DCU professor caught up in the upheaval in Libya has spoken of her mounting sense of terror as the situation there deteriorates.
In an e-mail interview, Prof Helena Sheehan said she had learned yesterday that her KLM flight which had been due to depart tomorrow had been cancelled.
“I have no idea how I am going to get out of here. I am stressed and depressed. I am isolated and terrified,” she wrote. “It is quiet now, but it is the lull before the storm, I think.”
Prof Sheehan had travelled to the north African state to deliver a lecture on philosophy of history at the Tripoli-based Jamahiri Thought Academy, an institution dedicated to the study of the ideology underpinning the regime of Muammar Gadafy.
Her lecture was postponed and then cancelled as the regime mounted a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests across the country.
“I have heard gunfire and seen helicopters and big plumes of black smoke from burning buildings. I haven’t actually seen anyone killed, but I know that the death toll is mounting,” she wrote.
“I have spoken to Libyans with strong views on both sides. Neither are sure what will happen next. I think that it will be bloody and brutal. The most shocking thing is peaceful protesters being killed. I have protested many times myself and rarely feared this would happen to me.”
Prof Sheehan was evacuated from the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Tripoli on Monday. Last night she was staying in another hotel near Green Square in the city centre.
“Many of the people are very friendly and helpful. However, my academic hosts seem to have abandoned me,” she wrote. “The academics involved were meeting in crisis sessions to advise the government on how to resolve the crisis. I don’t know where they are now.”
Prof Sheehan also wrote of her concern about communication difficulties as the situation in Libya worsens. “Every form of communication that I have now seems so fragile.”