THE start of military strikes on Libya have received a mixed reaction in Oxfordshire.

As missiles hit the North African country over the weekend, arguments raged over whether the UK had made the right decision by getting involved in policing the no-fly zone established by the United Nations last week.

Watching events unfold was Tim Eyres from North Oxford, who returned from his home in Tripoli last month after three years in Libya.

He said: “Obviously, I have mixed feelings about it all. I think it is a very difficult call.

“Every decision is going to have bad results and cause death, so one has to take the decision that will have the least bad results.”

Mr Eyres, who worked as an educational advisor, said his friends in Tripoli were trying to go about their daily business as best as possible.

But with banks closed, he said that was becoming more difficult.

He added: “If we don’t do this, there could be a massacre and then we would be accused of not doing anything, like in Rwanda.

“Colonel Gaddafi will probably go now. You cannot survive with so much of the world, including the UN, against you.” Rachael Williams, 24, from Carterton, visited the Libyan border on a trip to Tunisia last week and said the visit “changed her life”.

She works for Audley Travel, based in Witney, and visited Tunisia to see how things had changed since protests sparked political change there last month.

The mother-of-one said: “When we arrived at the border, with our armed escorts, what I saw took my breath away.

“There was row after row of tents, thousands all in a line, and rubbish piles all around. As I walked past all I could hear were people praying and children crying.

“My heart broke for them.”

Inside the camps were more than 17,000 refugees from Libya.

She added: “I will never forget the response I had when I asked one of the refugees if he was happy he had made it to the border. He told me he how he felt he was lucky because he had not been in Japan when the tsunami struck and that there are always people worse off then yourself.”

Mrs Williams now hopes to return to the region to volunteer.