FORMER White Horse News reporter Sam Tarling was recently on the front line as he covered action in troubled Libya.
Sam now works as a photojournalist for Executive magazine and is based in Beirut. He also undertakes freelance assignments and he was in Libya for four days, taking photographs of both the front line and rebel training camps.
It took Sam 20 hours to make the journey from Cairo to Benghazi, via three buses and two taxis.
Sam said, “On the Tuesday we visited the rebels’ training camps around Benghazi, which has become the rebels’ stronghold in the east.
“There were rows of young kids and old men which a handful of soldiers who had defected were hastily trying to train before packing them off to the front. I’m sure that few of them had any combat experience beforehand and I doubt the few days (at best) spent running around a parade square did them much good.
“On Wednesday we ventured down to the front line, which at that point was in the small town of Ras Lanuf. Here we got caught in an artillery strike that lasted about 20 minutes. Shells and mortar rounds were falling about 100 metres away in front of us, and one fell about 300 metres behind. About 2 kilometres away a massive oil refinery was bombed, the flames were some 500 metres high.
“All in all we were very lucky – that was a quiet day compared to the air raids they’d seen before and the huge attack that happened the day after, eventually driving the rebels from the town.
“The trip was an amazing experience for me and I’m glad it was something I was able to witness first hand.
“I was shown some truly disturbing images that I was told were of soldiers who had been killed for refusing to fight the rebels and I can’t help but think that an equally unpleasant end will await the residents of Benghazi and the rest of eastern Libya if Gaddafi’s forces aren’t stopped.”
Sam has been living and working in Beirut since he left White Horse News in 2009. Reporting for White Horse News was Sam’s first experience of journalism. As well as working on Executive magazine in Beirut, his freelance work has appeared in publications around the world including International Herald Tribune (New York Times) and Timeout magazine.
