The Law Enforcement Department within the Interior Ministry’s General Directorate of Security Operations announced yesterday that squatters who had fled the fighting during Libya’s 2011 civil war will be evicted from the Savings Bank-owned apartments on Tripoli’s Airport Road.
The Law Enforcement Department said it and the Ministry of Social Affairs, had conducted a survey of the illegal occupants of the half-built apartments. Evictions are being delayed until after the end of Ramadan (19 or 20 March).
The move to evict the squatters is based on the decision of the Tripoli based Prime Minister to form a committee, headed by the Director of the Law Enforcement Department, to monitor the conditions of the apartments and buildings located on Airport Road belonging to the Savings Bank.
Apartments assessed
The Law Enforcement Department reported that the committee chairman conducted a field visit yesterday to several of these buildings and apartments. During the visit, he assessed the conditions inside the residences in preparation for the Ministry of Social Affairs’ official commencement of work at the beginning of next week.
Evicted families will be assisted with short-term rent
This work will involve registering families whose original homes were damaged during the war and allocating rental assistance to them for a specified period.
The committee chairman explained that after the buildings and apartments are vacated following the completion of the Ministry of Social Affairs’ work, they will be handed over to the Savings Bank to begin maintenance and renovation work, in accordance with the established procedures.
Libya’s 2011 civil war led to much displacement
It will be recalled that war-time squatters from various parts of western Libya forcibly entered and occupied the incomplete Airport Road apartments to escape fighting.
They carried out some haphazard DIY building work such as connecting to electricity and water, installing windows (sometimes using makeshift plastic and wood) and doors etc, to make them habitable.
Squatters refused to vacate the apartments after the end of the fighting
However, at the end of the war and the on-off sporadic fighting, the squatters refused to vacate the apartments.
Meanwhile, the legal owner of the apartments, the Savings Bank, has been pushing the government to vacate their properties so that it can complete building them to planning permission specifications for handover to either their rightful owners or to sell.
It is important to note that many of these apartments have already been paid for by people who had obtained a loan/mortgage from the Savings Bank.
A reversal of Qaddafi-era policy
It must be noted that if the Tripoli government does indeed succeed in evicting the squatters, it will set a new and important legal and cultural precedent.
For decades Qaddafi had espoused the policy and culture that all property is owned by the state through the ‘‘occupier is owner’’ slogan. This meant that if a Libyan identified an empty property, they could enter it and live in it and by simply occupying it they can gain legal tenure to it. This especially applied to homes where even banks could not evict owners who had failed to pay their monthly mortgage payments. This contributed to banks ceasing to offer loans / mortgages.
Hence the planned Tripoli government evictions would set a precedent for many aggrieved property owners whose property was seized and confiscated during the 42-year Qaddafi era.
