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Brave Misrata takes back its main street

Misrata’s families — fathers with young daughters, mothers with toddlers in tow — have descended on Tripoli Street, the epicentre of the fight between rebels and Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, who had besieged the city. They surveyed what had become of their western port city after Gaddafi’s forces were driven out after fierce street battles, pushing the front lines in a sweeping arc around it and giving civilians much-needed breathing space. People picked up baby strollers and carried them over piles of shell casings littering pavements, steering them around sand berms and burnt-out tanks blocking footpaths. They snapped pictures of their children in front of shattered facades and surveyed a curb-side collection of shrapnel Gaddafi’s troops used in their failed attempt to pound the city into submission. At heart, they were paying their respects to brothers, sons and neighbours who had died defending Misrata. But they were also, quite simply, reclaiming their city.

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