Tripoli – Nearly four months have passed since the devastating hurricane.”Daniel“Which struck a number of cities and villages in the east Libya Last September 11, causing torrents and major floods that destroyed two valley dams tuber east BenghaziIt caused unprecedented human and material damage.
Residents, activists, and local and international organizations are still talking about a major weakness in the response to the operations of recovering bodies and rubble and relieving the afflicted until now, as a number of them confirmed to Al Jazeera Net.
A slow government response was surrounded by bureaucracy, confusion, and the authorities’ inability to exercise good governance and distinguish between normal situations and crises. Director of the Bayan Center for Studies, Nizar Akrekish, believes that it deepened the crisis “despite the popular uprising at first, then the community and civil institutions and the Libyan Red Crescent, whose efforts were wasted by the poor official response.”
Controversy of official figures
The authorities in eastern Libya still insist on recording only 4,200 dead, despite unofficial estimates indicating that the real death toll far exceeds this number, as confirmed by the Ambulance and Emergency Service.Tripoli On several occasions, the real death toll from floods in the city of Derna and its environs exceeded 16 thousand.
As for United nations It announced the death of more than 4,000 people, in addition to 8,000 missing persons, and the displacement of 43,000 people, according to un-updated statistics.
A controversy that was intensified by the resignation of the spokesman for the Supreme Emergency Committee of the Eastern Government, Muhammad Al-Jarh, in a live press conference, due to what he described as the impossibility of the task and the inability to deliver accurate information to citizens.
Then Major General Ahmed Al-Mismari, spokesman for the retired Major General, confirmed this Khalifa Haftar Again, the number of deaths does not exceed 4,100, despite assurances Global Health Organization 4,255 deaths and more than 9,000 missing during the first week of the disaster.
The confirmed numbers were lost months later, despite repeated requests locally and internationally, in the midst of political disputes between the authorities of the east and west of Libya, which were unable to form a joint emergency committee to manage the crisis, so the number of missing and recovered people remains unknown, in “a precedent that has not occurred in other disasters in the world,” he says. A number of Al Jazeera Net observers.
The National Human Rights Committee in Libya estimated the number of people displaced as a result of the floods from the cities of Derna, Sousse, Shahat, and some areas of Jabal al-Akhdar, east of the afflicted country, at more than 44 thousand people, the majority of whom are distributed in the eastern regions of Libya at an estimated rate of 93%, while the remaining 7% were displaced to the west of the country. Especially the capital, Tripoli.
These displaced people are suffering from difficult humanitarian conditions with the onset of winter, especially those in schools that are used as temporary shelters.
Both governments did not provide them with basic needs, specifically clothes, mattresses, and heating means, and did not give them a housing allowance for rent or financial assistance to overcome their suffering, as the head of the National Human Rights Committee, Ahmed Hamza, confirms to Al Jazeera Net.
Emaar is suspended
Local officials and eyewitnesses in the affected areas told Al Jazeera Net that they did not witness any operations to remove the rubble and start reconstruction projects.
A number of Red Crescent volunteers confirmed that they are continuing to recover bodies and collect the bones of victims that are constantly being washed away by the sea, in light of conflicting official statements about compensation and the start of reconstruction, while the people bear the burden of removing rubble and cleaning homes and streets, as a number of them explain.
The National Unity Government announced its early withdrawal from the city of Derna after disagreements with the parallel government appointed by Parliament, which, since the first weeks of the disaster, has refrained from publishing information regarding its management of the crisis, contenting itself with disbursing simple financial compensation that does not meet the needs of those affected, which led them to refuse to receive it in some areas. According to local sources confirmed to Al Jazeera Net.
The political division, with two legislative councils and two governments in Tripoli and Benghazi, constituted the greatest obstacle to responding to the Derna disaster, as explained by the director of the Bayan Center for Studies, Nizar Akreksh.
Akreksh added to Al Jazeera Net that the state’s intervention came more than a week after the disaster, and that the lack of a crisis team outside the framework of the existing authorities made the crisis into two crises: the first is that the weak government administration itself wants to manage an urgent crisis, and the second is a division in which politicians compete to whitewash their image before opinion. public and gain more legitimacy.
And he sees The speaker himself That after the angry demonstrations that took place in Derna carrying the Speaker of the House of Representatives Aqeela Saleh Responsibility and demands for his resignation. Matters became complicated and took on a political character.
He added that this strengthened the division, as each party began to compete with and hinder the other. The crisis entered into a vicious circle that brought the file into the wheels of the failed state, and the element of speed and effectiveness, which is the essence of any response to such crises, disappeared.
Investigations not completed
The Libyan authorities, who pledged to open an investigation into the incident of the collapse of the Wadi Derna dams as a result of the flood, did not provide any results after three months, despite what was announced at the time by the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Tripoli regarding the formal suspension of dozens of officials.
Which is called an organization Human Rights Watch To demand the necessity of conducting an independent investigation to review what it described as “the failure of the Libyan authorities to deal with the floods that claimed the lives of thousands of civilians.”
The organization said, through the Assistant Director of the Middle East and North Africa Department, Hanan Saleh, that “questions must be raised to the authorities regarding the failure to provide adequate maintenance for the old infrastructure, including the two collapsed dams, despite long-standing concerns about their condition.”
Hanan added that since the end of the mandate of the independent United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Libya last March, there is no longer an effective international investigation mechanism in Libya, calling on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Nations experts to begin investigating the human rights violations and abuses related to the crisis. .
Human Rights Watch indicated that there is “good reason to believe that the storm would have been much less deadly if the authorities had responded to danger signals by evacuating people living in the flood area,” calling for an accelerated investigation to determine the cause of the massive loss of life and pave the way for accountability.
At a time when international bodies are demanding that the results of investigations be expedited and that those responsible for the thousands of victims, missing persons, and destruction of buildings and infrastructure be held accountable, local activists are demanding an end to the policy of silencing every critic of the authorities in the east of the country who accuse them of negligence in the crisis.
