Pamela and Nuri Sherif have just commemorated their 47th marriage anniversary but there were no celebrations to mark the occasion because their mind and heart were in war-torn Libya, which they fled on August 14.
“We come to Malta quite often, even six times a year, but never in August, it’s too hot. The last time we were here on holiday was in June. Never in my life did I think we would come here as evacuees seeking refuge from the conflict,” Mr Sherif told the newspaper.
They were so desperate to get out of Tripoli they bought two other air tickets – one to Cairo and one to Tunis – before getting on a plane to Malta. They both have Maltese citizenship.
I was hearing explosions in the distance, not knowing where they were coming from or where the bombs were landing
“In the past, Libya used to help Malta but now Malta is helping Libyans in a humanitarian way,” Mr Sherif said.
The 72-year-old Libyan first came to Malta “out of curiosity” in 1963 and met his Maltese wife in a coffee shop in Valletta two years later.
“I saved up seven Libyan dinars for my first airline ticket and stayed at a hotel in South Street, Valletta for €1.16.
“We met at a coffee shop and it was love at first sight. I will always remember the moment I slipped her wedding ring on in 1967,” he said.
The couple married in Malta and Libya: at Our Lady of Sorrows church, in St Paul’s Bay, and in Tripoli.
Though still happy together 47 years later, they could not celebrate.
“We spent the day thinking of how things have deteriorated in Libya,” Mr Sherif, a retired senior financial adviser of the Libyan branch of Agip Oil, said. “We called our daughter, Jamila, who is still in Tripoli, and she told us that, for the past two days, they have not had any electricity because the distribution station was attacked,” Ms Sherif, 66, added, visibly broken.
Before fleeing their house in the Bin Ashur neighbourhood to come to Malta, the couple, who also have a son living in the UK, had gone for 12 hours without electricity.
God plucked us out of harm’s way; a few days later a rocket landed 15 metres away from the house
Libya has been sinking into deeper violence throughout the summer.
“Problems started on July 13 when we were still living in our house close by the airport. On July 15, we packed up and left for our other house in Bin Ashur, Tripoli, seeking safety. “God plucked us out of harm’s way; a few days later a rocket landed 15 metres away from the house,” Mr Sherif said.
In Bin Ashur, Ms Sherif locked herself indoors while her husband went out to do the shopping on foot, since there was a fuel shortage.
Asked about scarcity of food, they said that, lately, they were feeling so helpless that they had lost their appetite.
In the meantime, news broadcast on Libyan TV focused on the clashes in Ukraine and did not mention the violence at home.
“But I was hearing explosions in the distance, not knowing where they were coming from or where the bombs were landing. Libyans are fighting Libyans and hurting innocent people,” she said, adding that the two of them were never keen on politics and had not taken a position on the current clashes.
“My only politics has always been how to raise my own family,” her husband quipped.
Asked for the secret behind their long marriage, Mr Sherif said that, apart from beauty, knowing when to forgive and apologise was key, even to overcome cultural differences.