Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday – marking the commemoration of the first anniversary of Storm Daniel and the ensuing floods that ravaged Derna in eastern Libya – that Libyan authorities were failing to provide adequate compensation and reconstruction support a year after devastating floods wrecked the eastern Libyan city of Derna and left thousands dead or missing.
Human Rights Watch also indicated that armed groups had yet to face accountability for emergency response failures that prevented people from seeking safety.
Humanitarian Conditions
“Displaced residents from Derna and other eastern Libyan towns, whose lives were upended after the calamity, face burdensome and often impossible hurdles accessing any kind of state support,” said Hanan Salah, associate Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“The authorities need to ensure an equitable approach to reconstruction efforts and remedy for residents.” Salah added.
According to the report, slow recovery and lack of a national response plan is having a severe effect on the economic rights of survivors, including to housing, health, electricity, and education.
“Flood survivors said they face hurdles getting equitable compensation and reconstruction support amid a political stalemate, severely limiting the ability of displaced people to return to their homes.” The report adds.
It says that in Derna, the hardest hit city, devastation and damage to infrastructure remains widespread, including to homes, water and sanitation networks, electricity grids, hospitals, and schools. It also says that access to financial and government services is limited and thousands of victims remain unidentified or missing.
Accountability
Derna Criminal Court convicted and sentenced on July 28, 12 Libyan officials to prison terms of up to 27 years, and fined them, for their role in the collapse of the two dams. It acquitted four others.
“The 16 officials did not include senior commanders and members of the LAAF (Haftar’s forces), which managed the crisis response and issued and enforced the questionable orders to shelter in place. There has been no accountability for the orders that prevented people from leaving their homes as the storm hit and during the flooding.” The report explains.
Human Rights Watch says the eastern Libya Development and Reconstruction Fund, controlled by Belqasim Haftar has also announced multiple reconstruction projects, including new housing units and bridges in Derna. However, the systems for financing the project and selecting the beneficiaries are unclear.
Human Rights Watch says it has backed a call by Libyan organizations for an independent international investigation into the Derna disaster. The mandate of the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya ended in March 2023 and no international investigative entity is currently in place for Libya.
Human Rights Watch called on Libyan authorities to realize the rights to health, housing, education, electricity, and water and sanitation, including for those affected by the floods, saying they should ensure that the relief and reconstruction response respects people’s rights.
“Only an independent investigation into all aspects of the Derna calamity can shed light into officials’ responsibility for the dam collapse and the key role armed groups played in managing the response that resulted in such a high number of deaths,” Salah said.
One Year On
On September 10 and 11, 2023, extreme rainfall from the hurricane-strength Storm Daniel caused two dams to burst in the coastal city of Derna, some 1,300 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli.
This storm led to flooding that killed nearly 4,000 people, left thousands missing and displaced more than 40,000 others, according to the United Nations.
