IP3 Press
22 October, 2011
The body of Colonel Gaddafi lies in a cold-storage room at a market on the outskirts of Misrata, on 21 October. He had been captured the day before, though the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear.
Rémi Ochlik
After graduating from high school, he went to Paris to study photography at Icart photo school and began working for the photography agency Wostok. In 2004, at the age of 20, Oc...
Misrata, Libya
The body of Colonel Gaddafi lies in a cold-storage room at a market on the outskirts of Misrata, on 21 October. He had been captured the day before, though the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear. After security forces fired live rounds on demonstrators outside a police station in Libya’s second city of Benghazi, in mid-February, anti-government protests escalated. Over the next few months, opposition to the rule of long-time dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi became a full-scale national revolt. Intense fighting broke out between largely untrained, ad hoc rebel militia and the Libyan military, together with other pro-Gaddafi forces.
On 17 March, the UN Security Council voted to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and called for international military action to protect civilians. Within hours of the UN resolution, NATO planes, with logistic support from several Arab countries, began a bombing campaign that severely impeded the progress of Gaddafi’s forces. By the end of August, the opposition had effectively taken control of the country, though pockets of Gaddafi supporters fought on. Parts of the capital, Tripoli, together with a number of west-Libyan towns, held out longest against the uprising. It was not until 23 October and the capture of Gaddafi, together with the taking of his hometown Sirte after a long siege, that the liberation of Libya was finally declared.
