By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 19,August 2013:
A peace deal between Reyayna and Zintan has been hammered out to end the cold war between . . .[restrict]the two neighbouring towns in the Western Mountains allowing residents of western Reyayna to return home after two years of exile. Most of them fled the town after it was captured in mid-May 2011.
Western Reyayna, but not eastern Reyayna, had largely supported Qaddafi during the revolution and helped attack Zintan. The situation is seen as comparable to that between Misrata and Tawergha.
The return is expected to happen at the beginning of the new school year next month.
“There was efforts to let the Reyayna displaced people to go back before Ramadan but the security situation was one of the reasons preventing implemention of the agreement” Zintan Local Council spokesman Omar Matooq told the Libya Herald.
Zintan has a list of those from western Reyayna who it claimed took in shelling it during the revolution, Matooq said. Reyayna had agreed to hand them over, he said.
The elders of Reyayna had also apologised and posted the apology in mosques of Zintan, he added.
“Everyone in Zintan believes that it is wrong to punish the criminals’ families for their sons’ mistakes,” he said. “If others followed this logic, all Libyans could build a new Libya through tolerance and laying aside what hinders progress.”
A member of Reyayna Shura Council, Abdulsalam Mohamed Hassan, said that residents were happy with the reconciliation agreement but they would not be able to return until the town was rebuilt. It has been massively damaged during the war. [/restrict]
