how the political context in the country worsened the impact of the disaster

A week after deadly floods in Libya, a “second devastating crisis” will it hit the Derna region? “Local authorities, aid agencies and the World Health Organization team are all concerned about the risk of disease spreading, including contaminated water and lack of hygiene”warned the UN on Monday September 18.

Eight days earlier, the town of around 100,000 inhabitants was devastated by torrential rains caused by Storm Daniel and the collapse of two dams. At least 3,000 people have died, according to a latest toll which could rise further, with thousands of people missing. “Most of the casualties could have been avoided,” denounced Petteri Taalas, director of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), on Thursday. The meteorologist targeted the political instability in the country, divided between a UN-recognized administration in the West, in Tripoli, and another government in the East, linked to Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

The town of Derna has long been stigmatized by the authorities

The city of Derna is located in the east of the country, under the control of Marshal Khalifa Haftar and the Libyan National Army. Even before the division of the country following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, “there was a culture of hatred of Derna on the part of the State”, underlines to franceinfo Jalel Harchaoui, associate researcher at the Royal United Services Institute. The researcher, a specialist in Libya, recalls that part of the city has historically been anti-establishment, intellectually rebellious, and that she also has “welcomed some of the most radical political Islam” in the 1990s, leading to harsh repression by the government.

“Derna is a city that constantly defied Gaddafi, so he punished it very severely,” continues with the BBC Hani Shennib, president of the National Council on Relations between Libya and the United States. In his eyes, the city has been the victim of several decades of contempt and neglect on the part of the authorities. “The city gradually eroded: no schools, hospitals in very poor condition, neglected infrastructure… And this continued after the revolution” in 2011, he adds.

Gaddafi’s regime “did not spend on maintenance” infrastructure, particularly in Derna, and “the division will add even more aberrations”, develops Jalel Harchaoui. “The hatred of Derna continues with Haftar”estimates the researcher.

“In this context, we are not going to set aside hundreds of millions of euros for the inhabitants of Derna. We are not considering them.”

Jalel Harchaoui

at franceinfo

After the arrival of jihadists from the Islamic State group In 2014, Derna also suffered a long siege by Marshal Haftar’s troops, until their assault and capture of the coastal town in 2019.

The two weakened dams had not been maintained for decades

In this context, the two dams that failed in Derna, built in the 1970s, operated for decades without being adequately monitored and maintained. According to the Libyan Attorney General Al-Seddik Al-Sour, cracks had been reported as early as 1998. In 2000, still according to the prosecutor, an Italian design office confirmed the existence of these cracks and advised building a third dam. However, repairs were not planned until 2007 and did not begin until 2010, before being suspended in the context of the 2011 revolution. Ten years later, the Libyan audit office spoke of “tergiversations” regarding the resumption of work.

However, alerts have multiplied over the years. Less than a year ago, in November 2022, Libyan engineer and researcher Abdel-Wanis Ashour warned of a possible “disaster” in the event of lack of maintenance of dams. With the force of storm Daniel and its torrential rains, “no dam could have retained such a quantity of water”, judge on franceinfo Patrick Haimzadeh, Libya specialist and former diplomat. For Jalel Harchaoui, however, maintenance projects and the desire to check the infrastructure could have limited the scale of the disaster.

The alert system is disorganized

Shortly before these deadly floods, Libya’s national meteorological center had issued initial alerts for heavy rainfall and flooding, without however reporting the danger linked to the state of the dams, specifies the World Meteorological Organization. The Libyan center “faces significant gaps in its observation systems. Its computer systems are not functioning well and there is a chronic shortage of staff (…). The entire chain of disaster management and governance is disrupted”estimates its director, Petteri Taalas.

“The fragmentation of national disaster management and response mechanisms has exacerbated the enormity of the challenges, as has the deterioration of infrastructure.”

Petteri Taalas

during a press briefing

For Petteri Taalas, without these dysfunctions, institutions “Could have issued warnings and emergency management services could have evacuated people, and we could have avoided most of the casualties.”

Authorities in the east are also accused of imposing a curfew as Storm Daniel approached the region, the Associated Press reports. Residents claimed to have received text messages urging them to stay at home, which Jalel Harchaoui also confirms. According to the researcher, the mayor of Derna personally called on the population to evacuate, but the message contradicted the SMS received by the residents, creating a “confusion”. The administration of western Libya has also “a lot of responsibility”by not having sufficiently informed the population of the danger, continues the specialist.

Can the current political situation influence the work of the rescue services in Derna? Since the disaster, “both administrations have appealed to the international community for services and assistance,” Tauhid Pasha of the International Organization for Migration told the BBC. According to this same source, the authorities in western Libya “coordinate with the Eastern government” about this help.

The majority of countries that have promised aid to Libya have delivered it to Benghazi, a little less than 300 kilometers from Derna, reports CNN. Algeria, however, preferred to send its aid directly to Tripoli, more than 1,200 km from the disaster zone. For their part, the authorities in Tripoli sent, according to the BBC, 14 tonnes of medical equipment and some 80 doctors and paramedics to the east of the country.