articles/Conflict/libyan-page2

Covering The Libyan Crisis - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Darrin Zammit-Lupi Published 01/08/2013

Chinese nationals line the decks of the Grimaldi ferry "Cruise Roma" after it berthed in Valletta's Grand Harbour, February 26, 2011. A total of 2,216 Chinese nationals arrived on the ferry in Malta on Saturday morning after being evacuated from Benghazi, according to 76 » local media.

My plan was to try to fly into Tripoli on an evacuation flight and fly straight out again - the shots I was looking for were of Europeans boarding the aircraft. Evacuations seemed to be starting off slowly - my first point of contact was the Austrian embassy in Malta, as they were the first to send a military plane to the island to be on standby to fly into Tripoli. The Reuters, Vienna bureau got in touch with authorities there, but no luck. There was no way they would take a journalist with them, occupying a very precious seat on the plane on the return flight.

We next tried the Maltese national airline Air Malta, who were laying on extra flights to try get as many Maltese and other nationalities out of the country as it descended into chaos. Though I made it clear to the airline that I wouldn't even need to walk away from the bottom of the aircraft stairs, they refused to take the risk of flying me in without a visa.

And no visas were being issued by the Libyan embassy in Malta.

A man wipes his shoes on a carpet showing Libyan dictator Gaddafi in an office in downtown Benghazi August 25, 2011.

Wanting something to start covering the story, I headed to the embassy where members of the Libyan community, normally a very discreet docile one, were protesting against Gaddafi. Such a sight seemed unthinkable until then - no Libyans, not even in Malta, ever dared speak out against Gaddafi. There was a lot of loud shouting but little more, though that would change in subsequent days.

I next headed to the airport to cover the arrival of some evacuees on an Air Malta flight, but didn't get anything too exciting out of that. Things got interesting as I was driving away from the airport.

Without any warning, two fighter jets flew right over my car at an altitude of around 500 feet. Malta has no military air force. It was immediately obvious that something major was happening. I made the quickest driving U-turn of my life and saw that the aircraft were beginning to circle the airport. I suspected they were planning on landing, so I headed to a vantage point where I'd be able to shoot that from. I got there just moments after they touched down and shot off a few frames as the Libyan Mirages F1 jets taxied along the runway. I dashed back to my car, and sped down to where I thought was the most likely airport park they were heading for. My hunch was correct.

Once again I shot a few frames, whipped out my laptop and immediately filed a couple of pictures to the Reuters' picture desk in Singapore, as well as to The Times, the local newspaper I shoot for.

• Covering The Libyan Crisis page 1
  
• Covering The Libyan Crisis page 2
  
• Covering The Libyan Crisis page 3
  
• Covering The Libyan Crisis page 4
  
• Covering The Libyan Crisis page 5
  

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