Hope Among The Ruins

Libyans staged the Arab Spring's most sweeping revolution. That means they've got to rebuild their country from scratch

Yuri Kozyrev for TIME

Haroun Milad and his brother Moussa amid the wreckage of Gaddafis museum in Tripoli

The fortress was once believed to be impregnable. But the walls of Bab al-Aziziyah and almost all its buildings have been pulverized into a wasteland. It is as if Libya poured 42 years of rage into the 2.3-sq.-mi. space. All that remain are mounds of ruin, twisted metal and smashed concrete. Some areas have become garbage dumps; others, pasture for sheep. And in place of its old master--the equally pulverized and deceased Muammar Gaddafi--there are new residents, squatters who have moved in to claim Bab al-Aziziyah for themselves. Khadija Mohamed is one of them. She was born the year Gaddafi came...

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