Local Libyans Worry For Homeland
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) - As the world continues to tighten the noose in Libya, a Fort Lauderdale attorney is keeping a close eye on the attacks. She welcomes the changes, but is also worrying about Operation Odyssey Dawn.
"You know on the one hand we felt excited and happy that this was happening but then as things went on it was very hard," said Fairuze Sofia.
Her relatives are in Misruta, just outside where allied forces are targeting missiles at Libyan government buildings and compounds.
While Sofia was born in the United States here father was raised in Libya. It is a life he's recounted for his daughter who now looks critically at the government in his homeland.
"Every family has people who have been affected and have family members who are living in exile overseas, who have been threatened with violence, who have been imprisoned, who've been tortured," said Sofia.
That is why the effort to fight back against the Moammar Qaddafi regime is bittersweet for Sofia. She hasn't been able to get a hold of her family in Libya and doesn't know how they are doing in the midst of all the turmoil.
"We're always trying to see what's going on if there's any news what's happening," she said. "We don't know they could be in Tunisia. They could be OK. They could be, God forbid, you know hopefully they're not dead. They could be out there fighting. They could be trapped in the house they don't know. We don't know at all and it's very scary because anybody who knows anything about Qaddafi knows what he does to his people."
But just at the Libyans are hanging on at home; Sofia is hanging on in Fort Lauderdale, hoping things change for the better. She believes some of her relatives and many others in the United States will return home if Qaddafi is defeated.
