Tripoli zoo reopens to offer Libyans rare respite from violence

It was supposed to be a temporary closure for renovations, but for 17 long years, Tripoli's zoo -- like the city itself -- was embroiled in the violence of Libya's brutal conflict.

Only now, during a spell of tenuous calm, has the zoo managed to reemerge from a bloody past, reopening its doors last month to offer rare relief in a city that still bears the scars of years of fighting.

On the first day of Eid al-Fitr in March, hundreds of families queued to enter the facility, despite the pouring rain.

Decked out in their best new Eid clothes, children stared wide-eyed at the bears, lions, Bengal tigers and white oryxes with their long, slender horns.

Several local species were also on display, including fennec foxes, rhim gazelles and waddans, or Barbary sheep -- a goatlike animal with curved horns, native to Libya's Waddan region.

Each of these indigenous species is at risk of poaching.

Dressed in a traditional embroidered robe, Mohammed Erbeh, 44, said he was "very happy" about the reopening of the zoo, as he visited with his three children.

"At last, a place to take children for outings after they were deprived of them for nearly 20 years," said the civil servant.

Lions killed

Built in 1985, the Tripoli Zoo sprawls on 45 hectares of parkland in the Libyan capital.

It was closed in 2009 for renovations under the administration of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, less than two years before a NATO-backed uprising ousted and killed him.

The North African country has since been gripped by violence and bouts of fighting, with occasional short-lived lulls of relative calm.

Now, the country remains divided between a UN-recognised government in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar.

In 2011, Tripoli Zoo staff had to flee the fighting, as the park is located close to Bab al-Aziziya, Gaddafi's fortified compound.

Even the animals were not spared the grinding violence, many of them having been traumatised by the sounds of fighting and stray bullets that swept through the zoo and littered its grounds that year.

Charities sent food and medicine to help the abandoned animals, as the zoo remained for years closed and held by militias, with a migrant sorting centre in its surroundings at one stage.

Last year, fighting flared again between pro-government forces and the militia that controlled that part of Tripoli.

Gunmen opened fire on the animals, killing dozens of them, including lions, according to a zoo management official who requested anonymity.

Dozens of others, including rare species, were stolen, the official added.

Out of its population of 1,100 animals, only 700 remained at the time of reopening, but the management is seeking to rebuild the herd.

At the time, pictures and video circulated online showing lions shot dead and armed men hauling away gazelles in trucks.

An escape

For years, the authorities steered clear of this area, controlled since 2011 by the militia led by Abdelghani "Gheniwa" al-Kikli, who had been accused of human trafficking, torture and killing prisoners.

After Kikli's death last year, a mass grave was discovered in the vicinity of the zoo.

It was only last summer that the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) was able to retake the area, allowing authorities to begin work to bring the zoo up to international standards and refurbish the enclosures.

Abdullah Aoun, a 62-year-old airline pilot, said he was proud of the progress made to reopen the zoo, describing it as an ideal escape from "crises and financial worries".

"It's another side to our country, far removed from pessimism and disagreements," he said.