Almost two weeks after the Libyan port city of Derna was devastated by floods, Hassan Ben Faid sits on the floor of a secondary school classroom that will, for the foreseeable future, be his home.
A pen in hand, he starts drawing his house and then, stroke after stroke, the rising levels of water, the dead and the drowning.
Hassan Ben Faid, seven, at the secondary school classroom with a Red Crescent worker.
“The water came fast and we escaped to the roof. I was so afraid,” he says, his voice loud and clear. Hassan is only seven years old, but, sitting next to his parents and siblings, he is determined to share his story.
“When we finally left, we had to walk through a lot of water,” he says. “I tried to step on the mud only but sometimes there were bodies too. I saw many dead people and I was so scared the same could happen to us.”
The Ben Faid family are staying in a classroom at the Um Al Momneen school in Derna. Father Walid, 47, and mother Ehtisan, 46, are seen with their children.
Fawa, five, who survived the floods with her family, sits with a Red Crescent worker. Right: Saja, eight, survived the floods with her family.
Hanan Aii, 46, with her daughter Fatihya, 11, at a school in Derna where they are staying since their house was destroyed during the floods. Hanan’s husband, Yasser Mohammed, was killed.
More than 11,000 people were killed in the floods during which swaths of the eastern Libyan city of Derna vanished. Thousands more people remain missing, buried under layers of dried mud or drowned in the sea – with entire families sitting at the bottom of the Mediterranean in the cars they tried to escape in, according to rescue divers. About 900 buildings have been destroyed – a further 400 are buried under the thick mud that came rushing down the valley after two poorly maintained dams burst under the weight of rainwater.
Rescue workers dig out dead people from under the rubble and mud, caused by flash floods and two poorly maintained burst dams that devastated Libya’s eastern city of Derna in the early hours of 11 September 2023.
A child’s toy among the rubble. Right: a rescue worker takes a break.
Hassan, his parents and five siblings survived; their apartment did not. The classroom at Derna’s Um Al Momneen secondary school, where they are staying, is stocked with mattresses, a makeshift kitchen and rugs to sit on. Hundreds of others stay at the school too, their lives devastated by tragedy: thanks to the climate crisis, the Mediterranean has heated by an unusual additional 2C-3C this year, creating ideal conditions for a “medicane” like Storm Daniel – which, days before hitting Libya on 11 September, had caused havoc across parts of Greece and Turkey. During this time of year, Libya’s eastern shores usually get no more than 1.5mm of monthly rainfall; Storm Daniel brought more than 400mm within 24 hours.
Rescue workers dig as they search for dead people at the Mediterranean shores in Derna on 16 September.
In addition, corruption prevented much-needed maintenance work on Derna’s dams, with funds allocated for repair works disappearing in the pockets of politicians who prioritised personal wealth over the safety of their people. The country has been divided since civil war broke out in 2014, with an internationally recognised administration under President Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh in the west, and a rival parallel government in the east.
Tarek Megerisi, a London-based senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, says: “Libyans have long been frustrated with their authorities, who lack any legitimacy and enrich themselves to an obscene degree while allowing the state to atrophy under them.” Protests followed the floods, with hundreds of people demanding accountability. Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan national army – the faction ruling in eastern Libya – quelled the dissent, although not violently. A cellular network blackout followed; military presence in the city increased.
Rescue workers and the army rush to dig out dead people from under the rubble on 16 September.
Mohammed Elhardi, 30, from Tripoli, came to Derna to help with rescue operations.
While politics remains divided, people certainly do not. Libyans from all over the country have arrived in Derna to help. Fresh graffiti messages on many of the devastated homes exhibit this too: “Libya is united,” they read.
Families gather on a hill overlooking the destroyed city of Derna.
Of Derna’s approximately 100,000 residents, 40,000 have left for bigger cities – and with a potential 20,000 dead, parts of Derna have turned into a near ghost town. Mental health workers say the psychological aftermath could bring another wave of devastation.
Mass graves are dug on the outskirts of Derna. More than 11,000 people have been killed in the floods.
Abdul Shafir, 42, has rescued several people and helped dig out dozens of those who died in the floods.
“I’ve seen depression, panic, anxiety and attempted suicide,” the Derna-based psychologist Asma El Jarbi says. “We have only a handful of psychologists here in Derna, where mental health has never been a priority. If we want to prevent further tragedy, we have to scale up.”
Salem Al Naas, 43, a spokesperson at the Libyan Red Crescent – he did not see his family for two days after the floods. Right: Asmah El Jarbi, 55, a psychologist from Derna, says mental health is a top priority in the flood-stricken city as many people are traumatised and suicidal.
There is no real mental health support for children like Hassan yet, Jarbi says. “We try to bring the children staying here at the school together. We play with them and we listen.”
Children play at a school in Derna, where they have found temporary shelter since their homes were destroyed in the flood.
A small group of them have gathered outside in the courtyard to play. Their laughs echo in a city where the cries of those trying to survive have long gone quiet.
Not too far away, on the shores of the Mediterranean, the waves continue to give up dead bodies, alongside clothes, toys, debris – lost in a tragedy that could have at least partially been prevented.
