The Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has started work in rainstorm-and-floods disaster areas in the eastern Libyan region, the Government of National Unity’s Interior Ministry announced on Saturday.
The Interior Ministry said the DVI team had arrived in Libya in coordination with the General Assembly of the Interpol to identify victims of the floods in eastern cities in the country.
“The general Assembly of the Interpol will send more teams from other states in order to help search and rescue teams to find and identify the victims of the floods that ensued from Storm Daniel that hit eastern cities in Libya.” The Interior Ministry said in a statement.
UAE’s DVI is the first team to be sent to Libya in coordination with the Interpol to identify the victims in eastern Libya.
Storm Daniel and ensuing floods hit eastern coastal cities, especially Derna, Al-Bayda and Al-Marj, on September 10 and 11. Two dams collapsed in Derna valley – an area locally known as Wadi Derna -, washing away entire neighborhoods and killing a number of entire families. The flood torrent obliterated around a quarter or the Mediterranean city of Derna, leaving thousands dead and missing.
The Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, called the flood that killed thousands in Derna, Libya, “a symbol of the world’s ills” as he opened the annual General Assembly, saying: “Derna was a sad snapshot of the state of the world, and that it was the flood of inequity, of injustice, of inability to confront the challenges in our midst.”
