Protesters broke into the Libyan parliament in Tobruk on Friday, setting fire to parts of the building. Motivated by deteriorating living conditions, political deadlock, and the government’s failure to hold an election that was to have taken place in December 2021, they demanded the dissolution of parliament and an end to the country’s chronic power cuts and rising bread prices. Demonstrators also protested in the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi.
Armed forces protecting the parliament building withdrew from the site while demonstrators lit fires. City residents posted videos online showing cheering and shouting as the fire began to creep up the side of the building.
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Stephanie Williams, the UN special adviser for Libya, condemned the storming of the parliament’s headquarters but tweeted that the right to peaceful protest should be respected.
Libya has been beset by conflict since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country has since been split between rival administrations in the east and west, both supported by militias and foreign governments.
Libya’s parliament, or House of Representatives, has been based in Tobruk, hundreds of miles east of the capital Tripoli, since the east-west schism in 2014. A rival body, formally known as the High Council of State, is based in Tripoli.