Libya City Torn by Tribal Feud
Ethnic Hatred Rooted in Battle for Misrata Underlines Challenges the Nation Faces After Gadhafi
MISRATA, Libya—”Traitors keep out,” reads graffiti at the entrance of a housing project in an impoverished neighborhood of Misrata, the rebel-held city grappling with the physical and emotional scars of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s siege since March.
A group of men sipping tea in the courtyard on a recent afternoon say the “traitors” are those who hail from Tawergha, a small town 25 miles to the south inhabited mostly by black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the slave trade….