Many migrants are victims: the drinking water situation in Libya is alarming

class=”sc-29f61514-0 icZBHN”>

Hundreds of angry people outside a mosque in the center of the destroyed port city demanded that those responsible for the disaster be held accountable, images from the Libyan TV channel Al-Masar showed on Monday. As a result of the storm “Daniel”, two dams burst in Darna. The authorities are accused of not maintaining them properly and thus contributing to the scale of the disaster. The Public Prosecution Service has started an investigation.

According to eyewitnesses, demonstrators tried to burn down the house of currently suspended mayor Abdel-Moneim al-Gheithy. Due to the severe flooding, the water sources in the disaster area are heavily contaminated with sewage. Thousands of people no longer have access to clean drinking water. The aid organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) urgently warned of a “rapidly spreading health crisis”, especially in Darna. Dozens of children have already become ill from contaminated water, it was said.

The United Nations also expressed concern about conditions in the east of the civil war country. In particular, polluted water and a lack of sanitation increased the risk of disease outbreaks, according to a statement released on Monday by UNSMIL, the UN mission in Libya. United Nations teams worked to prevent a “second devastating crisis in the region” and the spread of disease. The EU has pledged a further €5.2 million in humanitarian aid to Libya. The US is also making an additional eleven million dollars (ten million euros) available.

Many migrants are also affected by the disaster. Before the floods, thousands of them lived alone in Darna. The UN Organization for Migration (IOM) assumes that the death toll among migrants will be particularly high because they settled in very low-lying areas, the organization told the British broadcaster BBC. About 4,000 deaths had been identified by the end of last week, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The IOM estimates that there were about 400 migrants alone. These numbers are likely to rise as more bodies are recovered.

There are hundreds of thousands of migrants in Libya. Some live and work in the North African country for a long time, while others use it as a transit country to reach Europe. The IOM and WHO report that the number of confirmed deaths is similarly high. The government in the stricken east of Libya estimated the number of officially registered deaths at 3,338 on Monday evening. Tens of thousands of people were left homeless as a result of the disaster.

Libya is actually divided into two parts. The civil war country has a government in the West that is internationally recognized. In the east, where storm ‘Daniel’ caused particularly extensive damage, another, internationally unrecognized government is in power. The factual division makes rescue operations more difficult.

(SDA)

Source: Blick