Tawergha
A Black Libyan town of forty thousand emptied in 2011 by militias from neighbouring Misrata, its name scraped off road signs, its people scattered into camps for a decade, and its return in 2018 into a place with no water and no electricity.
Identity
Population: Around 40,000 before 2011; a partial and precarious return since 2018
Location: Tawergha, 250 kilometres east of Tripoli and 38 kilometres south of Misrata, on the coastal plain
Language: Libyan Arabic
Language family: Afro-Asiatic → Semitic → Arabic
Traditional governance: A local council in exile for most of the past decade; a 2018 national reconciliation agreement provided for return, and its implementation has been partial.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups — clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes — each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Camp communities
Displaced families in Benghazi, Tripoli and Ajdabiya camps between 2011 and 2018.
Returnee households
Those who have gone back since 2018 to a town largely without services.
Diaspora abroad
Families who left Libya entirely, mostly to Tunisia and Egypt.
Culture
Clothing: Libyan dress; the community's dark skin, in a country where the descendants of enslaved people are still marked by it, has been the operative fact of its recent history.
Food: Libyan cooking of couscous, bazin and dates; the camps produced a decade of cooking on rations and shared kitchens.
Ceremonies: Islamic festivals, kept in the camps; weddings, which continued through displacement; commemorations of the town's emptying, held annually.
Marriage customs: Islamic marriage; the community's endogamy has been reinforced by displacement and by the hostility of neighbouring towns.
Initiation rites: Quranic school; schooling in the camps was provided unevenly and a generation's education was substantially disrupted.
Stories & Oral Literature
The Town ErasedContemporary account
During the 2011 war, Tawergha was used by Gaddafi's forces as a base for the siege of Misrata, and some Tawerghans fought with them. When Misrata's brigades took the town in August 2011 they drove out the entire population, looted and burned the houses, and painted over the name on the road signs. Human rights investigators described what followed as a possible crime against humanity.
Descent as AccusationSocial account
Tawergha's population is descended largely from enslaved people brought north on the trans-Saharan routes, and the town was among the poorest and darkest-skinned in Libya. Investigators and Libyan commentators alike have recorded that the retribution was framed in racial terms from the start, with Tawerghans accused collectively as a group rather than individually as fighters.
Proverbs
“They painted over the name and the road still goes there.”
Erasure that did not work.
“A whole town cannot commit a crime.”
The community's central argument against collective punishment.
“We came back to walls without water.”
The 2018 return, as returnees describe it.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: Islamic cosmology, shared with the country entirely; the community's distinguishing history is one of descent and displacement rather than of separate belief.
Beliefs: Sunni Maliki Islam, identical to that of the towns that expelled them, which is part of what makes the case a matter of race rather than of religion.
Ancestors: Descent from enslaved people carried north across the Sahara is the community's origin and, in 2011, became the pretext for its destruction.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Allah
The one God, worshipped identically with the rest of Libya
Local saints
Marabout tombs of the coastal plain, several damaged or destroyed since 2011
The 2018 agreement
Not sacred, but the document on which the community's future formally rests
Architecture
Traditional settlements: A modern Libyan town of concrete villas and public buildings, systematically looted and burned in 2011, with partial reoccupation since 2018.
Building techniques: Concrete and block construction typical of late twentieth-century Libyan development; the town's rebuilding since 2018 has been slow and largely unfunded.
Village layout: A planned coastal-plain town with school, hospital and mosque, most of which stood empty for seven years and much of which remains unusable.
Artifacts
The painted-over road signs
Historical object
Signs from which the town's name was erased after 2011.
Displacement camps
Heritage site
Sites in Benghazi, Tripoli and Ajdabiya that housed the community for seven years.
2018 reconciliation agreement
Archive
The document providing for return, implemented only partially.
Human rights investigations
Archive
Documentation by international bodies of the town's emptying.
Historical Timeline
1800s
Tawergha is settled substantially by people descended from those carried north on the trans-Saharan slave routes.
Pre-2011
A town of around 40,000, among the poorest in coastal Libya.
August 2011
Misratan brigades take the town and expel its entire population; houses are looted and burned.
2011–2018
The community lives in camps across Libya; returns are repeatedly blocked.
2018
A reconciliation agreement permits return; the town has little water or electricity and reoccupation is partial.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- Human Rights Watch: Libya — TawerghaHuman Rights Watch
- Amnesty International: Libya reportingAmnesty International
- UN Support Mission in Libya reportsUnited Nations
Premium & scholarly sources