This month, as the latest political stalemate festered, one of Libya's two rival governments set up its headquarters in Sirte, a central coastal city near where the frontline solidified after the last major conflict paused in 2020. It was damaged first in 2011 and then in the 2016 fighting to evict Islamic State, when it came under the Tripoli government. At the 600 Block, Omar's neighbour Abdulkarim al-Shahomi, 57, had little hope that the latest political manoeuvring would improve his life. The subsidised supermarket where Shahomi used to buy food closed after the revolution along with others like it across Libya. It still stands, empty, near the roundabout where Islamic State once staged public executions.

Source: Libya Today June 26, 2022 15:19 UTC