Reply #4: Libyan revolution is worth the fight, say battle-torn families

[joshcryer]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/01/libyan-revolution-battle-torn-families">Libyan revolution is worth the fight, say battle-torn families
"People find it very hard," said Iman Fannoush, with her two children in tow and a husband she knows not where. "They are up all night shooting because of good news. We hear the UN is coming to help us or our fighters have taken Brega or the air strikes have destroyed Gaddafi's tanks. Then everyone is afraid again when they hear Gaddafi's army is coming and they all want to know where is France, where are the air strikes, why is the west abandoning us?"

Against that, Libyans have surprised themselves with a solidarity and consideration for others many said they didn't know they had because the regime poisoned relationships with suspicion.

The families who fled Ras Lanuf, Brega and Ajdabiya as Gaddafi's forces advanced found a welcome in the houses of strangers in Benghazi. When that city then came under attack, and those families fled again along with their new hosts, they were taken in at homes along the coast all the way to Tobruk.

Fannoush, 25, was among them. She last saw her husband, Mohammed, three weeks ago as he left their home in Ajdabiya, about 90 miles south of Benghazi, to fight Gaddafi's advancing army. Days later, as the Libyan leader's forces bore down on Ajdabiya, Fannoush could no longer wait for Mohammed to return and fled with much of the town's population, leaving a note for her husband. "It said I have gone to Benghazi but I do not know if I can stop there. It said we might not stop until Egypt," she said.