According to a report by the French website “Africa Intelligence,” the Italian consulting company “IRD Engineering” was awarded a contract worth 670 thousand euros to supervise the maintenance of the Derna dams. The company based its contract on a preliminary report from two Swiss companies, “Stucky SA” and “Norbert SA,” and would have taken 60 months to implement its mission.
The two Swiss companies submitted their studies before 2010, but as a result of the diplomatic crisis between Libya and Switzerland in 2008, Stucky SA was forced to close its office in Tripoli and leave the country. A diplomatic crisis broke out between Libya and Switzerland in 2008, due to Geneva’s arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi and his wife, following a complaint filed by two maids accusing them of beating them. The founder of Stucky SA, Miguel Stucky , and his Tunisian partner, Rachid Al-Hamdani, are linked to the case after they were detained in Libya in response to the arrest of Hannibal.
Libya witnessed a tragedy last September 11 due to the collapse of the Derna dams as a result of floods that swept the eastern region, causing thousands of victims. The dams were built under Gaddafi’s regime by the Yugoslav company Hidrotehnika-Hidroenergetika from 1973 to 1977 to control flooding.
Cracks had been reported in the dams as early as 1998. Derna’s deputy mayor said that the dams had not been maintained since 2002 and were not built to withstand such volumes of water.
