Separating one element of an Svg file into multiple elements with Inkscape

I want to edit an svg from wikimedia commons that shows the human arteries to highlite a specific artery in a specific color. Unfortunately multiple arteries in that svg are represented by the same svg object. What's the best way for editing files like that to be able to select different subparts and color them?

Answer

In Inkscape we can break apart the path at a desired location.

1. Ungroup all paths from the source SVG



2. 
   

   Select nodes from where we wish to break the path

   
   

   

   
   


3. 
   

   Tick Break Path at selected nodes

   
   


4. Choose Path > Break apart Shift+Ctrl+K


5. 
   

   Select the now generated new object to then change it's color (or delete it, move it, etc.)

   
   
   

   

   
   

In case there are no pre-existing nodes at the location we need to break we can always manually add new ones.