What it's like in Tripoli

Message received this week from an Englishwoman who lived in Tripoli until very recently, now in Tunisia:

The vast majority of people in Tripoli have been besieged in their houses since the protests there began on 20th February. Every small street is guarded by armed people, so they can barely leave their houses, let alone protest, to let the world know how they feel. The pro-Gadaffi people on TV are often families of the massive secret police, who have been indoctrinated in cult-like ways their whole lives. There are others, not rocket scientists, who are waving green flags because they've been given huge sums of money and cars to do it! Gaddafi is throwing money and stuff at people (not that it's his to give away!); I have absolutely no doubt that the vast majority of Libyan people are very very happy that they're being helped by the coalition.

A lot of the people patrolling the streets are orphans, now teenage, who were brought up in govt institutions and brainwashed from childhood - a bit like child soldiers in some countries.

I do see a lot of TV channels from BBC world to Al Jazeera, and I see some politicians talking as if the coalitions forces are just to save the people in Benghazi and the east, but there are millions of people besieged and terrified in their homes in Tripoli, Miserata, the other towns in the west, including the Berber region in the western mountains, which are 100% anti-Gaddafi. They're waiting to stand up.

We manage to speak to friends in Tripoli most days. They confirm that the coalition attacks haven't hit civilians. They are terrified and dream of escaping. One told us that the families of murdered protesters are too afraid to go to the cemetary, so bury the bodies in the gardens, or, in apartments are keeping them in rooms with several air-conditioners on to preserve them. If the soldiers see there is a protester in the family, they'll take all the men.

Hope it'll be days rather than weeks before the regime falls.