2023-09-25 13:48:46
The Attorney General of Libya has ordered the pre-trial detention of eight officials as part of an investigation into the failure of the two dams which led to the deadly floods in Derna on September 10, his office announced.
Storm Daniel hit the east of the country on the night of September 10 to 11, notably Derna, a town of 100,000 inhabitants bordering the Mediterranean, leading to the rupture of two dams upstream and causing a flood of the magnitude of a tsunami that swept away everything in its path. More than 3,800 people have died and more than ten thousand are missing.
Residents of Derna, entire neighborhoods of which were swept away by the flood, protested on September 18 to demand that the authorities be held accountable. They notably called for “a rapid investigation and legal action against those responsible for the disaster”.
Among the eight Libyans whose placement in pre-trial detention the Prosecutor ordered, there are seven people occupying or having occupied positions of responsibility within the department of hydraulic resources or that of dam management in Libya. The eighth is the mayor of Derna Abdulmonem al-Ghaithi, dismissed with the rest of the Municipal Council after the tragedy. Last week, protesters burned down his house.
The Libyan Attorney General al-Seddik al-Sour announced on September 15 that he had opened an investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy. According to him, the dam management in Libya had reported cracks on the two structures in 1998 but no work was done to remedy them.
An “international” conference for the reconstruction of Derna?
A 2007 contract to repair the dams was never concluded amid the civil war that began with the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The investigation focused in particular on a contract between the Libyan department of Water and a Turkish company for the maintenance of the two dams and the payment in 2014 to the latter of “disproportionate sums”, and this “although it violated the commitments stipulated in the contract”, according to the Prosecutor’s press release. Derna was controlled until 2019 by fighters from a range of groups, including the Islamic State.
VIDEO. The city of Derna continues to count its dead
According to the statement released by his office on Monday, a total of 16 people, all involved to varying degrees in the management of dams in Libya, are involved in the investigation.
The eight people targeted by a provisional detention order were heard on Sunday by a commission responsible for investigating the collapse of the two dams, according to the press release. The text indicates that the director of the dam management department and his predecessor “were not able to refute their responsibility in the poor management of the administrative and financial missions incumbent on them”.
Libya has the most abundant oil reserves in Africa, and does not lack resources. The authorities of eastern Libya – the country is governed by two rival administrations – announced Friday that they planned to organize an “international” conference on October 10 in Derna for the reconstruction of the city.
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