Thousands have been caught in the Libyan fighting – people neither with Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, or with the rebels. Ayman Agamy Abdelgawad, an Egyptian released from Tripoli’s Abdu Selim prison, shares his experiences with IPS. He narrates his experience below:
"We grabbed all these weapons from Gaddafi's compound just before NATO shelled the whole place," says rebel fighter Massud Askar in downtown Nalut. The 50-year-old rebel displays an Italian light semi-automatic rifle in his right hand and a hand grenade in the other.
"I’m 60 years old and I never thought I'd see this moment with my own eyes," Najib Taghuz tells IPS from the Tunisian-Libyan border. The engineer from the recently liberated town Gehryan is headed for Tunisia - his wife needs surgery on the left hand. But he hopes to return to a new Libya.
Recent victories in Libya’s western mountains have led to a brief reprieve from violence and local fighters and civilians are slowly trying to piece their lives back together.