• Old shipment of mobile phones finally reaches Tripoli store after 16 years
• Video captures the moment boxes are opened and sparks wide reaction

After nearly 16 years of waiting, a shipment of mobile phones finally arrived at a store owner in Libya’s capital, Tripoli.

The amusing incident quickly went viral on social media, after the shipment had originally been ordered in 2010 and then disappeared due to the unrest that followed the outbreak of the civil war in Libya.

According to the shop owner and his friends, who appeared in a widely shared video, the shipment was handed over to a local intermediary that year but never reached its destination, even though the sender and recipient lived only a few kilometers apart within Tripoli.

With the outbreak of the 2011 war and the collapse of customs and transport systems, the boxes remained stuck in warehouses for over a decade.

When the boxes were finally opened in 2026, they contained dozens of old button-based phones, in a scene that seemed like a return to another era.

In the video, the shop owner bursts out laughing and jokes: “Are these phones or artifacts?”

The shipment included both standard models and others that were considered premium at the time, such as music-focused editions and phones that were once regarded as status symbols more than a decade ago.