Sarah Besan Shennib

[1] Sarah Besan is a direct descendant of the House of Shennib, great-granddaughter of Sir Omar Faiek Shennib, founder of the current House of Shennib Head of Royal Libyan Court (the Royal Diwan), Minister of Defence and Vice President of National Assembly of Libya.

[2] Omar Faiek's few remaining direct descendants are delineated through the marriage of his nephew, Sir Ahmed Fouad Shennib, and Omar Faiek's daughter, Lady Ibtisam Shennib.

Following Muammar Gaddafi's coup of 1969, the descendants of the House of Shennib lived primarily in exile, which saw the House geographically splintered in the decades following thereon.

[3] Eldest daughter of Dr. Hani Shennib, son of Ahmed Fouad Shennib, Libyan Minister of Education and Culture and Cultural Attache to UNESCO until 1959[4] and daughter of Dr. Awatef Shihabeldeen,[5] a Kuwaiti national, Sarah Besan was born in San Francisco, California in 1978, during Hani Shennib's exile from Libya at the height of the Gaddafi regime's persecution of those closely affiliated with the deposed Kingdom of Libya.

The family settled in the French-speaking province of Quebec where both Sir Hani Shennib and his wife took up medical positions at McGill University, in Montreal.