The tragedy of Benghazi, Libya’s second city

THE GOLD-LEAF lanterns on the railings around the tomb are modelled on those that embellish Buckingham Palace. The crenellated walls glimmer with Italy’s finest marble. A huge chandelier within hails from Egypt. The shrine to Omar al-Mukh tar, Libya’s anti-colonial scholar-cum-warrior hero, has been handsomely restored, two decades after a jealous Muammar Qaddafi dumped it in the desert.But peer out through its arched windows and all you see is the surrounding ruin of Benghazi, Libya’s second city. Much of what was once a charming Italian city, with cafés, art-deco cinema and royal palace, is a smashed ghost town. The courthouse where Libyans rose up against Qaddafi in 2011 is awash with sewage. “Lost homeland”, reads a graffito on a chipped colonnade adorning the old Bank of Rome. Services have collapsed. Rubbish is piled up in the streets. Waste flows into the sea. Schools recently had to close after they were flooded in a storm. War profiteers and smugglers have moved in.