Libya: desperate search for survivors

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More than 30,000 people have been left homeless in the particularly hard-hit port city of Darna alone, and thousands more in other cities in the east of the country, as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on X, formerly Twitter. Rescue workers continued to search for dead people on Wednesday. About 10,000 people are missing, but hope is gradually diminishing. According to the government in the east of the country, more than 5,000 people were killed. The exact number is difficult to quantify independently.

People in Libya bury their dead

The storm ‘Daniel’, which previously also raged in Greece, hit the North African country on Sunday. Two dams broke near the coastal town of Darna and entire neighborhoods of the city of about 100,000 inhabitants were washed into the sea. Videos on social media showed convoys of vehicles carrying the dead, while other images showed bodies floating in the sea. New drone images also show the dramatic situation. Entire streets of Darna are covered in meters of mud. Helpers search for survivors among the mass of the Earth.

Aid group Care Libya said that with water levels of up to ten meters, the area around Darna was completely destroyed and communications and electricity networks were paralyzed. The mayor of Shahat spoke of about 20,000 square kilometers of flooded areas – an area about the size of Saxony-Anhalt. The affected areas were declared disaster areas.

A government spokesman in the east of the country said on Wednesday that more than a thousand unidentified bodies had been buried in mass graves. In total, more than 3,000 people have already been buried there. Aid organizations, politicians and the army expect the number of deaths to rise even further.

More and more countries are offering help

A spokesperson for UN Secretary General António Guterres in New York said they were working with local, national and international partners “to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the people in the affected areas.” A UN team is on site. We are working with authorities to identify needs and support ongoing relief efforts. Besides Darna, other cities such as Al-Baida, Al-Marj, Susa and Shahat were also affected.

Expert: We have dealt with climate change too carelessly

According to experts, the heavy storms in the Mediterranean can probably be attributed to climate change. Last week, precipitation that had never been seen before in Europe was measured, Kiel meteorologist Mojib Latif said on Bayerischer Rundfunk. “I think we have been far, far too careless when it comes to climate change.” This is currently changing.

“Climate change not only means higher temperatures, but above all means more extreme weather, more risk of damage and, above all, a huge challenge,” says Latif. You can adapt to a certain extent, but there are also limits: “What else do they (in Libya) want to do with such bodies of water?”

A country weakened by a civil war

Currently, two hostile governments – one based in the East and the other in the West – are vying for power. All diplomatic attempts to peacefully resolve the civil war, which continues to this day, have so far failed. Numerous parties in the conflict are fighting for influence after former ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi was violently overthrown in 2011.

According to Libya expert Wolfram Lacher of the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP), the disaster in the country is also related to the political situation. “The reason for the scale of the catastrophe is the rupture of these two dams above Darna,” he told ZDF. Not enough has been invested in the infrastructure there for years. “At the time, Gaddafi punished the city because rebels had taken up arms there.”

While some money has always flowed in recent years, “some of it went into the pockets of militia leaders and war profiteers.”

Darna has a long and painful history

The history of Darna dates back to Roman times. Surrounded by mountains and deserts, the port city was partly shaped by the Italian occupation in the early 20th century.

However, Darna has also repeatedly been the center of conflict. The coastal city was temporarily considered an enclave of the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS). In 2019, General Khalifa Haftar’s forces completely captured Darna after months of fighting.

(SDA)

Source: Blick