North Africa: Drinking water situation in Libya alarming

2023-09-19 04:42:55

North Africa Drinking water situation in Libya alarming

Rescue teams are looking for victims in Darna. photo

© Yousef Murad/AP/dpa

Rotting corpses, polluted wells, tens of thousands of homeless people: the supply situation in Libya is alarming. Experts warn of an outbreak of disease. Anger is mixed with despair.

While rescue teams in the flood-ravaged port city of Darna in When the alarm is raised in Libya about the precarious drinking water supply, the desperate survivors unleash anger at the political elites.

Hundreds of angry people demanded in front of a mosque in the center of the devastated port city of Darna that those responsible for the disaster be held accountable, as footage from the Libyan TV channel Al-Masar showed yesterday. As a result of Storm Daniel, two dams in Darna burst. The authorities are accused of not maintaining them properly and thus contributing to the extent of the disaster. The public prosecutor’s office began an investigation.

Water sources heavily contaminated

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

The United Nations also expressed concern about the conditions in the east of the civil war country. In particular, contaminated water and poor sanitation increased the risk of disease outbreaks, said a statement released yesterday by UNSMIL, the UN mission in Libya. United Nations teams were working to prevent a “second devastating crisis in the region” and the spread of disease. The EU pledged a further 5.2 million euros in humanitarian aid to Libya. The USA is also providing another eleven million dollars (ten million euros).

Many migrants among the victims

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 were settled in very low-lying areas, as the organization told the British broadcaster BBC.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 4,000 deaths had been identified by the end of last week. The IOM assumes that there were around 400 migrants alone. These numbers are likely to rise as more bodies continue to be recovered.

Civil war has divided the country

There are hundreds of thousands of migrants in Libya. Some live and work long-term in the North African country, while others use it as a transit country to get to Europe. The IOM and the WHO report the number of confirmed deaths to be similarly high. The government in affected eastern Libya put the number of officially registered deaths at 3,338 as of yesterday evening. Tens of thousands of people were made homeless by the disaster.

Libya is effectively 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 great damage, a different government that is not internationally recognized is in power. The de facto division makes rescue operations more difficult.

dpa