Youth’s murder brings renewed Coastal Highway block at Zawia

By Moutaz Ai.

Tripoli, 16 2016:

The coastal road at Zawia, opened yesterday after being blocked for over a year, is again closed after the murder of a local youth by an armed gang.

The blockade of the road began to be reinstated after Ahmed Sasi from Matred,  just outside Zawia, was shot by unidentified attackers. Within 24 hours, the long-sought removal of the sand berms on the key coastal highway appears to have been abandoned.

The blocking of roads has been a common form of protest in Libya but none has lasted as long as that in Zawia.

Only yesterday, Suq Al-Juma residents ended a five-day blockade on their part of the coastal road. They had imposed it in fury at the long hours of power cuts that have plagued the district.

A Friday night meeting of Tripoli area mayors with Government of National Accord local government minister-designate  and Presidency Council member Mohamed Zayed hammered out a deal to spread the power cuts evenly across the metropolitan area. Zayed also promised to speed up the import of mobile power stations.

The last time emergency power units were brought into Libya, adding an extra 450MW of power, the deal went sour when the US provider, APR complained that they were not being paid and withdrew the generating sets they  had flown in during May 2013.

Last year the audit bureau decided that the APR contract had been too expensive at $193 million, then worth LD 247 million. It said a British rival had offered to supply emergency generators putting out the same power for LD 36.3 million.

Also today there were unconfirmed reports that protestors had blocked the road at Zliten.