Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of eastern Libya, has placed his six sons in positions of political and military power. The deadly floods in Derna have seen his youngest, Saddam, rise to head of disaster relief management and the top of his succession charts. For Libyans, it spells more bad news.
Wearing camouflage fatigues and his customary scowl, Saddam Haftar pours over a map of Libya in an airy chamber identified as the “Libyan Emergency Room” in a post on X, formerly Twitter. At his side are three Russian officials, part of a Russian defence ministry team that arrived in eastern Libya days after dams collapsed in Derna, unleashing a disaster of biblical proportions.
