Libyan authorities have largely sealed off the flood-devastated port town of Derna from civilians in an effort to give space to emergency aid workers and amid concern that contamination of standing water may add to the already horrific death toll.
Salem Al-Ferjani, director general of the ambulance and emergency service in eastern Libya, said that only search and rescue teams would be allowed to enter parts of the town most affected by the flooding that has left at least 11,000 dead according to official projections. Many citizens have already left the town voluntarily.
The plan to shut off the town came after the Libyan Red Crescent raised its estimate of the number of dead and missing. The UN has launched an appeal for $71m and said 884,000 people had been affected by the floods that hit north-east Libya early on Sunday morning.
“Bodies are littering the streets, washing back on shore and are buried under collapsed buildings and debris. In just two hours, one of my colleagues counted over 200 bodies on the beach near Derna,” Bilal Sablouh, the ICRC’s regional forensics manager for Africa, told a briefing in Geneva. Divers are also combing the coastal waters of the city.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of the Red Cross on Friday issued a joint statement urging Libyans to stop burying the dead in mass graves.
“Some may move quickly to bury bodies, such as in mass graves, in part in an attempt to manage this distress, and sometimes because of the fear that these bodies pose a health threat,” the statement said.
“This approach can be detrimental to the population. Though local authorities and communities can be under immense pressure to bury the dead quickly, the consequences of mismanagement of the dead include long-lasting mental distress for family members as well as social and legal problems”.
Pierre Guyomarch, the head of the ICRC’s forensics unit, said: “The belief that dead bodies will cause epidemics is not supported by evidence. We see too many cases where media reports and even some medical professionals get this issue wrong. Those who survive an event like a natural disaster are more likely to spread disease than dead bodies.”
The exception was where bodies were in or near fresh water supplies, underlining the need for fresh water. Libyan health authorities have reported more than 40 cases of water poisoning.
A UN report showed that more than 1,000 people had so far been buried in that manner since the country was hit by floods.
The part closure of the town has done nothing to stave off the growing anger at the way politicians have handled the crisis, by issuing unclear evacuation orders before the floods and by failing to do anything to siphon water off the two dams, as had been done before.
A multi-year failure to maintain the dam is being put down to negligence and a €100m compensation demand made by a Turkish firm that was originally contracted to maintain the Derna valley dams.
Many Libyans were calling for any official inquiry into the causes of the disaster to have an international component to prevent a cover-up.
Elham Saudi, the director of Lawyers for Justice in Libya, said: “An international inquiry is required to investigate and hold accountable those responsible, whether through negligence or corruption, for this tragedy. One thing we have learnt is that the political elite in Libya are incapable and unwilling to hold themselves to account.
“We have seen this in action on several occasions in recent days including [speaker of the House of Representatives] Aguila Saleh telling Libyans ‘don’t say if we had done this or that … this is a natural disaster’ in his first address to the nation since the floods. Impunity can longer be the norm in Libya and we certainly know from our research and the public outcry that we Libyans will no longer tolerate it.”
In a sign of how militias still dominate in the town, a coordination meeting was held on Thursday in Derna between representatives of the Tariq bin Ziyad Brigade, 444th Brigade, 166th Battalion, and other brigades accused of trying to take control of aid distribution.
Libyan TV stations have come together to start an appeal for the region and Friday prayers were devoted to those affected.
