A documentary made by Osama Alfitory after the 2011 revolution, produced for ARTE (French/German) and DW Arabic.
The film follows three elderly, retired military men who defuse World War II-era landmines in residential Benghazi. The mines were embedded in streets, shops, and walls — remnants of a war fought eight decades earlier, still lethal in a city where children walked to school.
One of the three men had lost both legs to a mine. One of them died during filming.
Alfitory said he calculated his daily chance of death while filming at 60–70%. The documentary screened in Germany to significant response. An English version is available on his website.
The landmine story captures something specific about Libya: layers of violence from different eras coexisting in the same physical space. World War II mines in streets scarred by the 2011 revolution, in a city that would see further conflict in 2014. The men clearing them were old enough to remember a Libya that predated Gaddafi.
Alfitory's decision to stop doing this kind of work came after his marriage and the expectation of his first child. The risk calculus changed. "I won't do that again."