SIRTE: First comes sadness at seeing their city reduced to rubble, then anger and resentment, before resignation sets in as residents of Sirte realise the heavy price they paid for supporting ex-dictator Moamer Qadhafi.
The Mediterranean city that stretches into the desert was Qadhafi's hometown as well, and his final refuge before he was killed on October 20 as it fell to fighters of the new regime, capping eight months of bloody fighting.
"The rebels wanted to punish Sirte," says Mahmud Ali shocked at the desolation surrounding him.
Ali and a few have dared trickle back into Sirte to take stock of what the city has become: a heap of rubble where the streets are littered with rotting corpses, unexploded ammunition and carpets of spent bullet shells.
"What happened here is not fair. Innocent people, civilians, their homes were destroyed, looted. And no one is coming to help us," said Qadhafi Mohammed Hussein, a 37-year-old shopkeeper.
Hussein runs a grocery store in the beach front Neighbourhood Three.
There are plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and a variety of tinned food and juices.
"I bought everything in Benghazi," he says of the eastern city where the uprising against Qadhafi erupted in mid-February.
"When everything is sold I will go back and buy another stock of goods," he says.
Some, who like Hussein, decided to return home, have rolled up their sleeves to sweep up the debris, cleaning up millions of cartridges that carpetted the wide streets of the city and hindered traffic.
Some of Sirte's residents, who numbered 120,000 before the conflict, have returned to salvage the remains of their personal belongings. But few are expected to stay because there are shortages of everything in Sirte: water, electricity, food, medical care.
Even the mosques are eerily empty on Friday, the weekly day of Muslim prayers.
Those making a run for their personal belongings, pack what little is left that they can dig from the rubble into small cars or pickup trucks and drive away.
The few who stay behind try to fix their homes or squat wherever they can find a roof to protect them, and like Badr al-Amari, 37, try to make a living as best as they can.
A teacher, Amari now sells cigarettes in Aziza al-Bahriya neighbourhood surrounded by the mangled remains of burnt out cars, piles of rubbish and spent cartridges that litter the ground.
"I have to do something. There is no more money and no school," he says.
Along with his wife and two daughters Amari have found shelter in a room in a four-storey building that has been battered by shells.
"Our house burned down, so we came here," he says.
Amari says he feels he has been punished by the National Transitional Council fighters who ended Qadhafi's regime, and impulsively calls them "thieves," accusing some of having set Sirte ablaze, looting and destroying his city.
"There hasn't been a city in Libya that has been destroyed like here. So if this is not punishment, what is," asks Mahmud Ali, a 58-year-old doctor.
Ali returned home Tuesday and found that his house had been looted and partially set on fire and his car was destroyed.
"My family is in Zliten, near Tripoli and for now they cannot come home. It is impossible without water and electricity," says Ali.
Tears run down his face as he speaks.
"The people here helped the Guide (Qadhafi), they defended the Guide and their city. True, it was wrong. The thwar (revolutionaries) wanted to kill Sirte for that. But if the new government does not help us, the people will turn against them."
There is no sign that Libya's new rulers are providing Sirte with any assistance.
Sometimes food is handed out by non-governmental organisations.
Meanwhile, NTC fighters are patrolling the city, checking identity cards and promising to arrest looters.
But will they help Sirte's population?
No. They say they won't.
"If the people of Sirte want to return to live here, it is up to them," says one of the fighters, Abdelwahab al-Hadat.
"It is up to them to repair their city."
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