Nearly 100 families have crammed into about 80 rooms at the college over the last two weeks after fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi in the coastal towns of Brega and Ajdabiyah forced them to flee, volunteers there said.
Shirts, trousers, blankets and towels were hung up to dry on the balconies of the university’s drab, box-shaped housing units on Wednesday.
Children played soccer in the scrubby grass outside. A white Mazda car stood nearby, its driver-side door scarred by gunfire.
Inside a room lined with lockers, men gathered on plastic chairs and mattresses to drink tea and chat as a small television showed Al Jazeera, a favorite among Libya’s rebels.
“We came here to protect our children. Qaddafi’s army has no morals,” said Abdelgader Sabr, a 40-year-old guard, repeating a common claim that Qaddafi employs mercenaries to fight the rebellion. “Most of the time we just follow the news now.”
“All of the basics are here, there’s electricity and food, but it’s not comfortable,” said Khaled Mohamed, a 42-year-old teacher helping care for the families, as he stood near the concrete, box-shaped student houses.
Ajdabiyah, which sits at a strategic highway intersection, has seen some of the fiercest fighting of Libya’s civil war. Most of its residents have fled to nearby towns or up the road to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Sabr said he fled with his wife and five children when they saw on television that Qaddafi troops were marching east and the distant sound of shelling erupted. Others had similar stories.
“There was artillery and rocket fire,” said Abdelgader Saleh, a 36-year-old jobless man who was staying at the university with his two children, describing the fighting in Ajdabiyah. “I have a house there that was hit. After it was hit, we got out of there.”
People in Benghazi have been donating rice, tuna, cheese, children’s milk and other food, which arrives at the dormitories twice a week, Mohamed, the organizer, said. As he spoke, a local businessman pulled up in a car loaded with food.
Volunteers have not had trouble providing for the displaced families so far, but few living there have any idea how long they will need to stay. “It depends on the war. Me, I hope it ends today, now,” Mohamed said.
Mussa Mohamed, a 27-year-old teacher living in the dormitories, showed videos on his cell phone of an old man wrapped in a blanket with a bright red wound on his head, who he said was the father of a family living in the next dormitory.
Another video showed a fire burning in the center of Ajdabiyah’s main road, Istanbul Street, as men shouted and gunfire erupted. “My brother was there, he took this,” Mohamed said. “I’m here with the family now ... A lot are staying behind to stand up to Qaddafi’s militias.”
