Naperville family calls relatives in Libya to confirm news

When Naperville resident Sarah Burshan heard the overwhelming news of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi's death Thursday morning, she immediately called two people for confirmation: her father, a representative with the rebel's interim government, and her 77-year-old grandmother, who lives in Tripoli.

Waheed Burshan packed his bags and headed for his birthplace as the people of Libya began their revolution in February, and has been traveling from city to city as a strategist for the National Transitional Council since.

“We called my grandma when we first heard, and she had the same feelings. She didn't know if it was true,” 23-year-old Sarah Burshan said. “She heard the celebratory gunfire outside, but didn't know what was going on.”

Soon after, the Burshan family called their father Waheed, who verified the news that the brutal 69-year-old dictator had been killed.

“I was still in pajamas, so I called him asking ‘Is it true? Is it true?'” Sarah Burshan said. “He said ‘Yes, yes, it finally happened. It is real.'”

As Sarah Burshan talked to her grandmother Satima in Tripoli, she knew she wouldn't hear the entire story because of the 77-year-old's tendency to withhold details while on the phone. Her home's lines have been monitored since her son was imprisoned by Gadhafi years ago.

“She was nervous,” Burshan said. “Our phone line has always been tapped. That's something she has been worried about.”

The 42-year reign of Gadhafi left Burshan's grandmother skeptical of news of his death even though celebrations were under way outside her home.

“It's really interesting to see how, even when Gadhafi is dead, he instilled so much fear in people. You don't know whether to believe it or not,” Burshan said. “You don't know if it's a trick to get you to come out of your home.”

Waheed and Amal Burshan fled the country in the midst of Gadhafi's reign, but Sarah Burshan said they have been waiting for the chance to return to their homeland and family.

“He's (Waheed Burshan) been waiting for this since he was a young boy,” his daughter said. “The second all of this started happening, he just hopped on a plane and went.”

Waheed and the rest of the interim government formed during the conflict that killed thousands are now tasked with forming a new government from a blank slate.

Gadhafi had governed the country without a constitution since the toppling of a pro-Western monarch in 1969.

“We came to America not for jobs or money, but there was nowhere to go,” Sarah Burshan said. “If you were opposed to the government it was jail or death.”

Sarah and her mother, Amal, visited the country during the revolution, but were unable to see relatives in Tripoli because the city remained under the hand of Gadhafi until it fell in late August.

Although Sarah Burshan is headed back to school to get her master's degree, she says her parents plan on moving back to Libya when the country is secure.

“It was a really emotional time,” she said of her visit. “I tell people, ‘You were either laughing or crying the whole time you were there. There was really no in-between.”