Aid groups warned of growing risk posed by the spread of disease that could compound the humanitarian crisis in Libya, as hopes dwindled yesterday of finding more survivors days after deadly flooding.
The flood on Sunday last week submerged the port city of Derna, washing thousands of people and homes out to sea after two upstream dams burst under the pressure of torrential rains triggered by the hurricane-strength storm.
Conflicting death tolls have been reported, with officials in the east of the divided country giving different estimates, and one speaking of at least 3,840 dead.
Photo: AFP
In Al-Bayda, 100km west of Derna, locals had already begun cleanup efforts, working to clear roads and homes of the mounds of mud left behind by the deluge.
Meanwhile, aid organizations such as Islamic Relief and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have warned of the spread of disease as well as grave difficulties in delivering aid to those most in need.
Islamic Relief said there could be a “second humanitarian crisis” after the flood, pointing to the “growing risk of water-borne diseases and shortages of food, shelter and medicine.”
“Thousands of people don’t have anywhere to sleep and don’t have food,” Islamic Relief deputy director of partner development Salah Aboulgasem said.
“In conditions like this, diseases can quickly spread as water systems are contaminated,” he said. “The city smells like death. Almost everyone has lost someone they know.”
MSF said it was deploying teams to the east to assess water and sanitation.
“With this type of event we can really worry about water-related disease,” said Manoelle Carton, MSF’s medical coordinator in Derna, who described efforts to coordinate aid as “chaotic.”
However, the Red Cross and the WHO said that contrary to widespread belief, the bodies of victims of natural disasters rarely pose a health threat.
An Agence France-Presse journalist in Derna said that central neighborhoods on either side of the river, which normally dries up at this time of year, looked as if a steam roller had passed through, uprooting trees and buildings and hurling vehicles onto the port’s breakwaters.
Ahmed al-Mesmari, spokesman for the east-based Libyan National Army, on Friday night said the flood had affected “over 1.2 million people.”
“Everything was washed away... The waters have completely cut off the roads in these regions,” he said.
Stephanie Williams, a US diplomat and former UN envoy to Libya, urged global mobilization to coordinate aid efforts in the wake of the flood in a social media post.
She spoke of the “predilection of Libya’s predatory ruling class to use the pretext of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘national ownership’ to steer such a process on their own and in a self-interested manner.”
The UN launched an appeal for more than US$71 million to assist hundreds of thousands in need and said that the “extent of the problem” remains unclear.
“We don’t know the extent of the problem,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said in Geneva on Friday, as he called for coordination between Libya’s two rival administrations — the UN-backed, internationally recognized government in Tripoli, and one based in the disaster-hit east.
However, the scale of the devastation gave way to shows of solidarity, as volunteers in Tripoli gathered aid for the flood victims in the east.
“Everyone in Tripoli is mobilized, and they’re bringing us goods. Tomorrow, we hope that aid will be sent to Derna,” said Mohamed Omar Benour, one of the volunteers. “We hope everything goes well, and may God help everyone.”
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) removed former minister of foreign affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) from his post after an investigation concluded that he had conducted an affair and fathered a child while serving as ambassador to the US, the Wall Street Journal reported. Top officials were told in August that a CCP inquiry into Qin uncovered “lifestyle issues,” the newspaper reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the situation that it did not describe. That phrase usually means sexual misbehavior of some type in the parlance of Chinese officialdom. Two of the people said the affair led to the birth of a child in
NO MORE LONG LINES: Swift border crossings for people traveling between Russia and areas it occupies in Ukraine show how quickly Moscow is seeking to absorb them To enter Russia from occupied Ukraine, all Tatiana has to do is arrive at the edge of the war-battered Donetsk region, show guards her Russian passport, say “thank you” and cross. Moscow has controlled several key border points since 2014, but the frontier has become more porous since the Kremlin annexed four Ukrainian territories last year, encouraging residents to take up new citizenship. “It’s become more comfortable because we’ve become Russians,” said the 37-year-old, who is from a Russian-occupied town. Tatiana used to have to go through a more arduous procedure to enter Russia: a check run by Moscow-sponsored separatists, then through Russian
GUNNED DOWN: The Canadian PM said there were credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey on June 18 India yesterday dismissed allegations that its government was linked to the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada as “absurd,” expelling a senior Canadian diplomat and accusing Canada of interfering in India’s internal affairs. It came a day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described what he called credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate of Sikh independence from India who was gunned down on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, and Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a
SECURITY: Wang met with the US national security adviser in Malta over the weekend, with the US side noting the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday headed to Russia for security talks after two days of meetings with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan over the weekend in Malta. China’s top foreign policy official will be in Russia until Thursday for a round of China-Russia strategic security consultations, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a brief statement. The US and China are at odds over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China has refrained from taking sides in the war, saying that while a country’s territory must be respected, the West needs to consider Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s
RSS