On Monday evening, May 12, Mahmoud El Ashry, a first-year medical student at the public University of Tripoli, noticed an unusual silence in the neighbourhood where he and other Egyptian students lived. It did not last. Gunfire and explosions from shells and rockets soon echoed through the streets as military vehicles and four-wheel drives spread through the area.
The neighbourhood became a battlefield, trapping students who had no connection to the fighting. Balconies and walls of their accommodation were damaged by crossfire.
Mahmoud enrolled at the Libyan university at the beginning of the 2024–25 academic year after scoring 72% in Egypt’s secondary-school examinations, too low for admission to private medical faculties at home. With study options in Russia, Ukraine and Sudan closed to him, he chose Libya without expecting armed confrontations to return to its streets.
When fighting erupted, Mahmoud and his classmates sheltered in their accommodation for three days, unable even to leave to buy basic food. They later learned through social media that the University of Tripoli had suspended teaching, examinations and administrative work until further notice.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry urged Egyptians in Tripoli to contact the embassy’s emergency numbers. Students say the lines remained busy for hours. When embassy staff eventually answered, they told the students to stay inside.
“There are around 100 Egyptian students at the University of Tripoli, and hundreds more across Libya’s universities, particularly Tripoli and Africa universities,” Mahmoud tells Zawia3. “What we went through was terrifying, and its effects are still with us.”
He says one student was injured inside their accommodation and an Egyptian worker was killed in the street by a shell. Streets felt so unsafe that students avoided carrying phones or valuables, fearing theft by armed men who told them that, as foreigners, they should not own what locals lacked.
“We want the Foreign Ministry to evacuate students who wish to return to Egypt, just as it brought athletes home. We fear things will get out of control.”
Mahmoud points to growing protests demanding Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s departure, in which people had already been killed.
Armed clashes erupted in Tripoli following the killing of Stability Support Apparatus commander Abdul Ghani Al Kikli, known as Ghaniwa, during a meeting at a base controlled by the 444 Brigade. The fighting subsequently involved the brigade and the Deterrence Apparatus, led by Abdul Rauf Kara and attached to the Presidential Council since 2018.
Violence intensified over the following days. Local media reported the resignation of seven ministers from the Government of National Unity. On Friday evening, armed groups loyal to Dbeibah’s government were reported to have fired live ammunition at protesters calling for his resignation, with attempts to run demonstrators down using military vehicles.
In a statement cited by this report, Libya’s National Institution for Human Rights reported 53 civilian fatalities, including Egyptian and Nigerian nationals and four Libyan women, alongside ten unidentified charred bodies. It also reported 40 people injured, some admitted to intensive care in public and private facilities, and 20 people missing during May 12–14. These figures are attributed to the organisation.
Egyptian students injured in their accommodation
At around 2 a.m. after Wednesday night, Hani Saeed, a petroleum engineering student at a private university in Tripoli, was asleep in student housing in Al Sarraj when a burst of gunfire woke him. He heard glass breaking and screams and rushed towards the noise.
His roommates Ahmed and Khaled, whose room faced the street, had been injured when bullets shattered their window. Glass fragments cut their arms, causing bleeding that Hani says continued for eight hours until fellow students brought a Libyan doctor to stitch their wounds. He says an appeal to the Red Crescent did not bring help.
“We called the Egyptian embassy when the injuries happened,” Hani tells Zawia3. He recounts an employee telling them that, provided nobody had died, they should wait for the airport to reopen, arguing that evacuation at that moment would endanger them.
When they contacted Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, Hani says an official told them the fighting had eased. “But we are terrified here and want to return to Egypt before a disaster happens to us,” he says. Appeals on social media also brought threats from people aligned with armed groups, he adds.
Hani believes other embassies moved faster to evacuate their nationals, while Egypt prioritised footballers. He says Turkey evacuated its citizens on Friday morning and that many Libyan residents also fled Tripoli, leaving their homes behind.
The Egyptian athletes’ evacuation involved moving them to Misrata, relatively distant from the fighting, before flying them home. The first group reached Cairo International Airport at around 11 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14. It included Ahli Tripoli coach Hossam El Badry and assistants Hadi Khashaba, Ahmed Ayoub and Hadi El Saeed, who travelled on a private flight from Misrata.
A second group of around five athletes and staff still in Tripoli was to travel by road under protection to Misrata before flying to Cairo. It included Al Ahly loanee Mahmoud Abdel Moneim, known as Kahraba, then playing for Libya’s Al Ittihad, Al Madina fitness coach Ahmed Esmat and Al Swehly volleyball player Ahmed Shafik. Their evacuation was completed by May 15.
Hani says teaching stopped and one university was targeted. Hundreds of Egyptian students live near their universities in Abu Salim, Al Sarraj, Salah Al Din, the Damascus neighbourhood and Al Jumhuriya Street—areas that had become unsafe.
He recounts an Egyptian dentistry student at the private Al Tahadi Medical University being robbed at knifepoint and assaulted. Even before the latest fighting, he says, students feared going out at night because armed men kidnapped people for ransom.
Mitiga Airport, Tripoli’s main air gateway, closed because of the deteriorating security situation. Flights resumed from 10 p.m. on Thursday.
The Government of National Unity’s Defence Ministry announced on Tuesday morning that its military operation in Tripoli had ended successfully. Fighting nevertheless resumed early Wednesday in central, southern and eastern districts. The ministry then announced a ceasefire, and the Presidential Council ordered a comprehensive cessation of fighting and froze the government’s military and security decisions. Cautious calm was disrupted by clashes between demonstrators and security forces near the prime minister’s offices on Friday evening.
Parents plead for their children’s return
Parents of Egyptians studying at Tripoli, Africa, Al Rifaq and Al Tahadi universities turned to social media to seek evacuation. They also asked for students to be allowed to transfer to Egyptian universities, as students returning from Russia, Ukraine and Sudan had done.
Zawia3 received appeals from the mothers of Zahraa Ayman and her cousin Omar Walid, first-year dentistry students at Al Tahadi. Their accounts describe the ordeal of 11 male and five female Egyptian students trapped in student housing since the fighting began.
Omar’s mother, Sherine Ibrahim, told Zawia3 on Friday that she lost contact with her son and nephew after electricity and internet services were cut. Before the outage, they said their food and water had run out and that fighting prevented them from leaving.
She questioned why athletes alone had been evacuated and asked for the students to return home and continue their studies in Egypt. She also reported that armed men had entered their university on Sunday and military vehicles had taken up positions there.
Zahraa’s mother, Shaimaa Ibrahim, says gunfire could be heard in the distance during a Monday morning call, but the students were told it was military training. By evening, Zahraa and Omar called their mothers screaming and distraught as fierce fighting surrounded them.
According to Shaimaa, a sniper climbed onto the roof of their housing in Al Sidra and then came down the stairs, terrifying the students. Fighting and tension continued for three days, preventing them from buying food or water and forcing them to drink salty water. Electricity and internet cuts lasted from evening until dawn.
“Fear kept the children inside even after the fighting stopped. They lived on a little cheese, bread and canned tuna until their food and water ran out.”
Shaimaa says their money was nearly exhausted and they could not receive family transfers under the security conditions. Renewed gunfire on Friday evening forced them to lie on the living-room floor, fearing bullets would reach them. When they contacted the Egyptian embassy, she says, they were told to stay at home.
On Saturday, Tripoli’s Souq Al Jumaa municipality called for civil disobedience, seeking the suspension of public institutions and urging other cities to join protests over civilian deaths and demand Dbeibah’s departure. Zawiya, Tajoura and Warshafana municipalities supported the call, with demonstrations planned in Martyrs’ Square and elsewhere. A Zawiya youth movement urged a march towards the capital backed by western coastal cities.
On Sunday, Arab media reported road closures in Tripoli, shuttered shops across much of Souq Al Jumaa and several commercial bank branches that had not opened, including Al Wahda, Al Mutawassit and the Bank of Commerce and Development.
Workers under fire
Mohamed El Shabrawy travelled overland to Libya in September 2024, paying labour brokers around EGP 40,000 to secure work at a food company. Having lost a job in a Gulf country, he had struggled to find income sufficient to support his family.
The company housed him with Egyptian and Sudanese workers in Abu Salim. On Monday, May 12, heavy weapons fire and fierce clashes broke out in the streets around their accommodation. The men feared they would be killed even while sheltering indoors.
The company arranged alternative housing in Al Sarraj, relatively farther from the fighting, and Libyan residents helped the workers move amid violence and a breakdown in security.
“We were living in Abu Salim, the stronghold of Abdul Ghani Al Kikli and his forces,” Mohamed tells Zawia3. “We were not safe inside; civilians were injured or killed in their homes when shells hit them.” In Al Sarraj, explosions could still be heard in the distance. Even after heavy fighting stopped, demonstrations demanding the government’s resignation left the situation unsettled.
Mohamed asks Egypt’s Foreign Ministry to give workers the same attention it gave athletes. He says employers retain many Egyptian workers’ passports as security against financial obligations or company property entrusted to them. Many workers who entered overland also lack legal residency, he says, leaving their fate in employers’ hands.
Reda Khaled, an Egyptian employee at a private electricity company, describes a similar ordeal in shared Egyptian and Sudanese workers’ housing in Abu Salim. The men sheltered for two days, but food ran out by the second day and hunger forced them into the streets.
“We had eaten nothing on Wednesday,” Reda tells Zawia3. “When we went to buy food, all the shops and bakeries were closed. A Libyan neighbour took pity on us and gave us food from her home.”
Following the end of heavy fighting, demonstrations continued in Martyrs’ Square. On Friday evening, renewed violence and an internet outage cut the workers off from the outside world. They heard gunfire around Abu Salim and spent a terrified night indoors.
Reda agrees that workers did not receive the attention given to athletes. Unlike Mohamed, however, he wants to wait before deciding to return, hoping Tripoli will calm down because he has financial commitments linked to preparations for marriage.
Egyptian community representative Ali El Sayed told media that an Egyptian worker died on May 14 after a shell struck Janzour, on Tripoli’s northwestern coast. Separately, an Egyptian community source told Zawia3 that worker Alaa Adel El Gazzar died after being shot near the former iron bridge while working on the Third Ring Road project in Tripoli.
The International Organization for Migration’s 2022 estimates identified 144,543 Egyptian migrants in Libya, representing 21% of the migrant population and the second-largest nationality group after migrants from Niger.
An operations room and calls for caution
In a May 17 statement, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry urged all parties to exercise maximum restraint, prioritise Libyans’ interests and protect their resources and property. It asked Egyptians in Libya to remain cautious and stay home until the situation became clearer, while keeping contact with the embassy and the ministry’s operations room.
Former assistant foreign minister for consular affairs and Egyptians abroad Salah Abdel Sadeq tells Zawia3 that the ministry established a round-the-clock operations room from the start of the crisis to monitor developments and their effects on Egyptians, coordinate with state agencies and consider measures to protect them.
He says Egypt could intervene to evacuate citizens if events spiral out of control, as it previously brought home thousands of students from Ukraine and Sudan.
Abdel Sadeq notes that Egyptians in Libya include workers, students and entire families, some formed through marriage and others brought over by a working parent. He says most live in eastern Libya, while western areas under Dbeibah’s government and allied armed groups have attracted Egyptian labour through relatively high wages.
Former assistant foreign minister Rokha Ahmed Hassan, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs and the Egyptian United Nations Association, argues that de-escalation requires concessions by Dbeibah, potentially withdrawal and a temporary government. Remaining in office and mobilising allied armed groups could instead intensify the crisis, he says.
Hassan stresses that Egyptians’ suffering is part of the wider hardship facing Tripoli residents. He says the ministry’s advice to stay home was intended to protect them while the outcome remained uncertain, and that continued violence would prompt Egypt to return citizens whose lives were in danger and who wished to leave.
Egypt reopened its Tripoli embassy when Dbeibah’s government was formed, Hassan says, but disagreements left it operating at chargé d’affaires level. Egypt also has a consulate in Benghazi and works with Arab and European partners and the United States on de-escalation and elections in both eastern and western Libya.
He describes the government as paralysed following seven ministerial resignations and calls for a unified Libyan government to avoid partition, noting the concentration of oil resources in the east and industrial and economic activity in the west.
Parliament asks what protection is in place
On Sunday, MP Freddy El Bayady, deputy leader of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party for foreign affairs, submitted an urgent question to Egypt’s foreign minister asking what measures had been taken to protect Egyptians in Libya and verify reports of injuries or arrests during the fighting.
He invoked Article 88 of Egypt’s Constitution, which requires the state to protect the rights and interests of Egyptians abroad. He asked for immediate protective measures, a plan for further developments including evacuation if needed, and details of communication channels between the embassy and the community.
El Bayady also sought confirmation of reports that Egyptians had been injured or detained, the actions taken in response, the number of Egyptians in affected areas and a plan to safeguard their lives and rights.
He tells Zawia3 that Libya has become an arena for foreign power struggles that flare periodically. Stability there is essential for Egypt, he says, and Egyptian authorities must protect their citizens and bring them home if necessary.
As civil disobedience spread and ministerial resignations shook Dbeibah’s government, Tripoli remained tense. Diplomats and politicians warned of renewed fighting, while Egyptian students, workers and parents continued appealing for safe return amid difficult living conditions and fears for their lives.
