2023-09-18 00:21:45
A week after the devastating floods that devastated the Libyan city of Here and left thousands dead, local rescuers, supported by foreign teams, They continued the search on Sunday of the bodies of people still missing.
rescue teams, dressed in protective suits and masks They continue with the arduous task of searching for survivors who may be trapped in the mud or among destroyed buildings, crushed cars or under fallen trees.
UN agencies warned that residents of Derna, a city of 100,000, urgently need clean water, food, shelter and basic supplies amid the growing risk of cholera, diarrhea, dehydration and malnutrition.
Mohammed Al Zawi, 25, told AFP that on the night of the tragedy he saw torrents of water that carried away cars with people insidepeople adrift in the waters and objects pushed by the current.
“Everything ended up in the sea”he said.
Members of the Italian rescue team set up nets in the deep sea to recover bodies in the port city of Derna, in eastern Libya. AFP Photo
The work of emergency teams is hampered by the division in power, with two governments facing each other, one in the capital Tripoli, which is recognized by the UN, and others in the east, in the affected area.
According to a latest report by the Minister of Health of the eastern government of the country, Othman Abdeljalil, The disaster left 3,283 deadafter the discovery of 31 bodies on Sunday.
The Libyan Red Crescent denied This Sunday a balance issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that there are 11,300 dead, which cited data from this local organization as a source.
“We are surprised to see our name involved in these figures. They add to the confusion, to the desperation of the families of the missing,” Libyan Red Crescent spokesman Tawfik Shoukri told AFP from Benghazi.
These contradictory balances show the division and the absence of a centralized authority in Libyaa country plunged into chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
On the other hand, four members of a Greek rescue team were killed and 15 others were injured, seven of them “in critical condition”in a “horrible road accident” when they were going from Benghazi to Derna, said the Minister of Health.
The disaster
Storm Daniel hit Derna on September 10, causing two dams on the normally dry riverbed that runs through the city to collapse.
Mohamad Abdelhafidh, a Lebanese who has lived in Derna for decades, told AFP that he was sleeping when he felt a “tremor” and he saw how the water rose to his apartment, which is on the third floor.
According to city residents, the majority of fatalities They were buried under the mud or dragged away to the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamza Al-Khafifi, a soldier from Benghazi, described how he found naked bodies of “elders, youth, women, men and children” scattered along the coast. “The bodies were trapped between the rocks.”
On Sunday, in the port of Derna, three volunteer divers from western Libya were content to watch as an Italian rescue team used an underwater camera to search for bodies in the water.
According to them, the Libyan Red Crescent asked them to let “specialized teams work (…) because the decomposition of the bodies poses a risk to their health.”
“I have seen with my own eyes the magnitude of the disaster. “This crisis exceeds Libya’s capacity to manage it.”declared the UN envoy to Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, on Saturday after visiting Derna.
The head for Libya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Tauhid Pasha, published on X (formerly Twitter) that the objective is to channel all authorities “to work together, coordinated.”
Despite the difficulties, international mobilization It continues and planes with aid continue to land at the airport of Benghazi, the main city in the east. There are already brigades on the ground from France, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
The magnitude of the devastation in and around Derna sparked a wave of solidarity in the divided country, where citizens began collecting donations to help the victims.
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