Victims in Libya’s flood zones are barely cared for. ‘Feelings of the nation hurt’: China discusses strange dress law

Following the devastating floods in Libya, rescue teams are faced with enormous logistical challenges. The floods have washed away access roads to the particularly hard-hit port city of Darna, and important bridges are buried under masses of mud. The east of the city in particular was further cut off from the rest, eyewitnesses on the spot reported to the German news agency. Communications links were partially lost. Other places in the civil war country also depend on support. The United Nations Emergency Response Agency estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are in urgent need of assistance.

Meanwhile, the World Food Program (WFP) has started delivering food to thousands of families in Libya. The organization said it has started providing urgently needed food assistance to more than 5,000 families. “These devastating floods have hit a country where a deep political crisis has already left so many people in desperate situations. In addition to the tragic loss of life, thousands of families in Darna are now without food and shelter,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain.

In an emergency appeal, the UN Office for Humanitarian Aid called for emergency aid worth $71.4 million (about 67 million euros) “to meet the urgent needs of 250,000 of the most affected Libyans.” The situation in the northeast of the country is critical. Nearly 900,000 people in five provinces of the country lived in areas affected “directly and to varying degrees” by storm “Daniel” and the flash flooding it caused.

“Daniel” hit the North African country on Sunday, causing heavy rain. Two dams broke near the city of Darna and entire neighborhoods of the city, which has a population of 100,000, were literally washed into the sea. “We expect a very high number of casualties,” Mayor Abdel-Moneim al-Gheithy told Arabic television channel Al-Arabija. Based on the areas of the city destroyed, there could be “18,000 to 20,000 deaths.”

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said: “Entire neighborhoods have disappeared from the map.” The situation is ‘shocking and heartbreaking’. The most urgent task now is to prevent the spread of disease. According to the head of the Libyan delegation to the International Red Cross, Yann Fridez, it could take “many months, perhaps years, for local residents to recover from this enormous scale of destruction.” (sad/dpa)