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EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK 2014hold prisoners. 1035 Schools were closed at the time.Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reported thatGaddafi forces had also used an elementary school inTomina as a detention site where women and girlswere raped. 1036Attacks on higher educationIn October 2011, forces of Libya’s interim governmentseized control of two strategic areas in the city of Sirte,at the university and at a huge construction site thatwas meant to be its new campus. 1037Attacks on education in 2013There were isolated reports of explosive devices beingplaced inside or near schools 1038 and fears that girlsA boy looks after his brother as they walk near thewreckage of a destroyed school in the town of Zlitan, Libya,one of a number of schools allegedly used by Gaddafi’stroops and bombed by NATO forces, 4 August 2011.© 2011 REUTERS/Caren Firouzwere being abducted by armed men. On 28 September2013, it was reported that four girls had beenabducted from outside schools in Tripoli, with at leastone incident involving armed men. Governmentofficials strongly denied a claim that up to 47 girls hadbeen taken in less than a week. 1039 Nonetheless,teachers staged a sit-in to demand increased securityoutside schools. 1040157