2023-09-13 12:00:02
Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes following the catastrophic floods in Libya. In the particularly hard-hit port city of Darna alone, more than 30,000 people have become homeless, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on X, formerly Twitter. Several thousand more are affected in other parts of the country. Rescue workers continued to search for dead people on Wednesday. Around 10,000 people are missing, and according to the administration in the east of the country, more than 5,000 people were killed.
The storm “Daniel”, which previously also raged in Greece, hit the North African country on Sunday with around seven million people. Two dams burst near the port city of Darna and entire neighborhoods were washed ashore. Images from the civil war country with around seven million inhabitants show the extent of the damage. More and more countries are offering their support, including the United Nations.
A UN team is on site
A spokesman 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 people in affected areas.” A UN team is on site. We are cooperating with the authorities to identify needs and support ongoing relief measures. In addition to Darna, other cities such as Al-Baida, Al-Marj, Susa and Shahat were also affected.
The mayor in Shahat spoke of around 20,000 square kilometers of flooded areas – an area about the size of Saxony-Anhalt. The affected regions were declared disaster areas.
The aid organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) said it was working with other organizations to examine “how we can best scale up our program work for people affected by the floods.”
According to experts, the severe storms in the Mediterranean region can probably be attributed to climate change. In the last week, rainfall was measured that had never been seen before in Europe, said Kiel meteorologist Mojib Latif on Bayerischer Rundfunk. “I think we were far, far too careless when it came to climate change.” This is currently changing. “Climate change doesn’t just mean higher temperatures, but above all means more extreme weather, more potential for damage and, above all, a gigantic challenge.” You can adapt to a certain extent, but there are also limits: “With such masses of water, what do they want (in Libya) still do that?”
According to Libya expert Wolfram Lacher from the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP), the disaster in the country is also linked to the political situation. “The reason for the extent of the disaster is the breach of these two dams above Darna,” Lacher told ZDF. For years there has not been enough investment in the infrastructure there. “Gaddafi punished the city for the fact that insurgents had taken up arms in it,” said Lacher. Although some money has always flowed in recent years, “but some of it went into the pockets of militia leaders and war profiteers.”
Christoph Ehrhardt Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 14 A comment from Alexander Haneke Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 5 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 13
Currently, two hostile governments – one based in the East, the other based in the West – are fighting for power. All diplomatic efforts to peacefully resolve the civil war, which continues to this day, have so far failed. Numerous parties to the conflict are fighting for influence after long-time ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi was violently overthrown in 2011.
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