Eight-year old Saad spent eleven days separated from his family as intense fighting erupted around Ajdabiya in eastern Libya. Now reunited, he is celebrating the town’s “liberation” from pro-Gaddafi troops with his brother Senat, how also went missing during the fighting.
On the main roundabout in Ajdabiya, cars circle with Senussi era flags—now the symbol of Libya’s revolution—hanging out of the window. Pro-revolution graffiti covers the walls, but signs of the recent fighting are everywhere. The graffiti is pockmarked by bullets, shell holes crater the roads, and bullet cases and empty ammunition boxes litter the pavement. All just metres from where Saad and his brother are celebrating.
A few kilometres outside of the freshly liberated town, people gather around the shells of several tanks, seemingly destroyed by Nato airstrikes as they advanced east.