A week after the devastating floods which left thousands dead in the Libyan city of Derna, local and foreign rescuers were busy searching for the bodies of thousands of other people still missing on Sunday.
In this city of 100,000 inhabitants bordering the Mediterranean in the east of the country, the disaster left a landscape of desolation: bridges cut in two, overturned cars, smashed trucks, damaged electricity poles, uprooted trees and personal belongings stained with mud, according to an AFP journalist on site.
Mohammed Al-Zawi, 25, lives in a house near Derna beach. He told AFP that on the night of the tragedy he saw “floods of water carrying away cars with people inside, people and property. Everything was dumped into the sea.”
According to a latest assessment by the health minister of the government based in the east of the divided country, Othman Abdeljalil, the disaster left 3,252 dead but international humanitarian organizations and Libyan officials have warned that the final toll could be much higher in due to the very large number of missing people, estimated at thousands.
Mr. Abdeljalil reiterated that only his ministry was authorized to communicate the death toll, casting doubt on the credibility of a multitude of figures circulating.
The Libyan Red Crescent thus denied on Sunday a death toll of 11,300 in the floods attributed to it by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“We are surprised to see our name mixed with these figures. They add to the confusion, to the distress of the families of the missing,” its spokesperson, Taoufik Chokri, told AFP from Benghazi, a large city in the east. “We have not provided such figures. »
“Seen Death”
Storm Daniel, which struck Derna on September 10, caused the rupture of two dams upstream and caused a tsunami-like flood along the wadi that crosses the city. She took everything in her path.
Libyan and foreign rescue teams say they are finding bodies every day, but searches are made difficult by the tons of mud that has covered part of the city.
Maltese rescuers, who are supporting the Libyans in sea searches, said they discovered hundreds of bodies in a bay and managed to recover dozens, according to the Times of Malta.
From under the rubble of neighborhoods devastated by the waves or in the open sea, dozens of bodies are taken out and buried every day in the middle of an apocalyptic landscape.
According to residents, most of the victims were buried under mud or swept towards the Mediterranean.
Mohamad Abdelhafidh, a Lebanese resident for decades in Derna, told AFP that he had “seen death”.
He was sleeping when he felt a “shake”. “I thought it was an earthquake. » The water rose to the level of his apartment, on the 3rd floor.
“Much more difficult”
“I saw with my own eyes the scale of the disaster. This crisis is beyond Libya’s capacity to manage. It goes beyond politics and borders,” declared the UN envoy to Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, after a visit to Derna on Saturday.
The organization of relief is complicated by the political chaos that has reigned in the country since the death during a popular revolt of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011: two governments, one in Tripoli (west), recognized by the UN, and the other in the East, compete for power.
“It’s not just about sending them [les équipes de secours]. They must be welcomed into the country, they must have the necessary logistics, be able to arrive at the right place. They must be in contact with the authorities […]. A lot of these things just aren’t in place [dans l’Est libyen] and that makes things a lot more difficult,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the BBC.
International mobilization nevertheless remains strong. Planes carrying rescue and assistance teams from international organizations and several countries continue to arrive at the airport in Benghazi, the major eastern city.
Moscow sent 35 emergency doctors and humanitarian aid, while 53 French rescuers are deploying “the medical-surgical structure near Derna so that it is operational”.