World
Catastrophic Libya flood kills thousands, desperate relatives search for survivors
Residents of the devastated Libyan city of Derna desperately searched for missing relatives on Wednesday and rescue workers appealed for more body bags, after a catastrophic flood that killed thousands of people and swept many out to sea, Reuters reported.
Swathes of the Mediterranean city were obliterated by a torrent of water unleashed by a powerful storm that swept down a usually dry riverbed on Sunday night, bursting dams above the city. Multi-storey buildings collapsed with sleeping families inside.
Officials have put the number of missing at 10,000. The U.N. aid agency OCHA said the figure was at least 5,000.
Usama Al Husadi, a 52-year-old driver, has been searching for his wife and five children since the disaster. “I went by foot searching for them … I went to all hospitals and schools but no luck,” he told Reuters, weeping with his head in his hands.
Husadi, who had been working the night of the storm, dialled his wife’s phone number once again. It was switched off. “We lost at least 50 members from my father’s family, between missing and dead,” he said.
The beach was littered with clothes, toys, furniture, shoes and other possessions swept out of homes by the torrent, read the report.
Streets were covered in deep mud and strewn with uprooted trees and hundreds of wrecked cars, many flipped on their sides or their roofs. One car was wedged on the second-floor balcony of a gutted building.
“I survived with my wife but I lost my sister,” Mohamed Mohsen Bujmila, a 41-year-old engineer, said. “My sister lives downtown where most of the destruction happened. We found the bodies of her husband and son and buried them.”
He also found the bodies of two strangers in his apartment.
As he spoke an Egyptian search-and-rescue team nearby recovered the body of his neighbour. “This is Aunt Khadija, may God grant her heaven,” Bujmila said.
The devastation is clear from high points above Derna, where the densely populated city centre, built along a seasonal riverbed, was now a wide, flat crescent of earth with stretches of muddy water gleaming in the sun. Buildings were swept away.
Death tolls given by officials so far have varied, but all are in the thousands.
Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, told Reuters more than 5,300 dead had been counted so far, and said the number was likely to increase significantly and might even double. The “sea is constantly dumping dozens of bodies”, he said by phone.
Tariq Kharaz, a spokesperson for the eastern authorities, said 3,200 bodies had been recovered, and 1,100 of them had yet to be identified.
Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television the estimated the number of deaths in the city could reach 18,000 to 20,000 based on the number of districts destroyed by the flood.
Rescue teams have arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Qatar, al-Ghaithi said.
“We actually need teams specialised in recovering bodies,” he said. “I fear that the city will be infected with an epidemic due to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water.”
Turkey is also sending a ship carrying equipment to set up two field hospitals and 148 medical staff to help with the rescue efforts, Reuters reported.
The U.N. migration agency, the International Organization for Migration, said at least 30,000 people had been displaced in Derna.
“We need bags for the bodies,” Lutfi al-Misrati, the director of the search team, told Al Jazeera.
Rescue operations are complicated by deep political fractures in the country of 7 million people that has lacked a strong central government and been at war on-and-off since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
An internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, in the west, while a parallel administration operates in the east, including Derna.
Libya’s Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah called the floods an unprecedented catastrophe. Libya’s Presidential Council head Mohammed al-Menfi has called for national unity.
The bodies of dozens of Egyptian migrants who were among the victims of the storm in Libya arrived on Wednesday in Beni Suef, about 110km (68 miles) south of Cairo, Egyptian media reported.
The United States carried out a strike against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria at the request of Nigeria’s government, President Donald Trump and the U.S. military said on Thursday, claiming the group had been targeting Christians in the region.
“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The U.S. military’s Africa Command said the strike was carried out in Sokoto state in coordination with the Nigerian authorities and killed multiple ISIS militants. An earlier statement posted by the command on X said the strike had been conducted at the request of Nigerian authorities, but that statement was later removed.
The strike comes after Trump in late October began warning that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Nigeria and threatened to militarily intervene in the West African country over what he says is its failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.
Reuters reported on Monday the U.S. had been conducting intelligence-gathering flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November.
Nigeria’s foreign ministry said the strike was carried out as part of ongoing security cooperation with the United States, involving intelligence sharing and strategic coordination to target militant groups.
“This has led to precision hits on terrorist targets in Nigeria by air strikes in the North West,” the ministry said in a post on X.
At least five people were killed and more than 30 others injured when a bomb exploded inside a mosque during prayers in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, police said Wednesday night.
Authorities believe the blast was a suicide attack, citing recovered fragments of a suspected explosive vest. Security forces have cordoned off the area and are searching for additional devices.
No group has claimed responsibility, though such attacks have previously been linked to Boko Haram, which has waged a long-running insurgency in the region.
World
Libyan army’s chief dies in plane crash in Turkey
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said an investigation into the crash was under way.
The Libyan army’s chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, died in a plane crash on Tuesday after leaving Turkey’s capital Ankara, the prime minister of Libya’s internationally recognised government said, adding that four others were on the jet as well, Reuters reported.
“This followed a tragic and painful incident while they were returning from an official trip from the Turkish city of Ankara. This grave loss is a great loss for the nation, for the military institution, and for all the people,” Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said in a statement.
He said the commander of Libya’s ground forces, the director of its military manufacturing authority, an adviser to the chief of staff, and a photographer from the chief of staff’s office were also on the aircraft.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social media platform X that the plane had taken off from Ankara’s Esenboga Airport at 1710 GMT en route to Tripoli, and that radio contact was lost at 1752 GMT. He said authorities found the plane’s wreckage near the Kesikkavak village in Ankara’s Haymana district.
He added that the Dassault Falcon 50-type jet had made a request for an emergency landing while over Haymana, but that no contact was established.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said an investigation into the crash was under way.
The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity said in a statement that the prime minister directed the defence minister to send an official delegation to Ankara to follow up on proceedings.
Walid Ellafi, state minister of political affairs and communication for the GNU, told broadcaster Libya Alahrar that it was not clear when a crash report would be ready, but that the jet was a leased Maltese aircraft. He added that officials did not have “sufficient information regarding its ownership or technical history,” but said this would be investigated.
Libya’s U.N.-recognised Government of National Unity announced official mourning across the country for three days, read the report.
Turkey’s defence ministry had announced Haddad’s visit earlier, saying he had met with Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler and Turkish counterpart Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, along with other Turkish military commanders.
The crash occurred a day after Turkey’s parliament passed a decision to extend the mandate of Turkish soldiers’ deployment in Libya by two more years.
NATO member Turkey has militarily and politically supported Libya’s Tripoli-based, internationally recognised government. In 2020, it sent military personnel there to train and support its government and later reached a maritime demarcation accord, which has been disputed by Egypt and Greece.
In 2022, Ankara and Tripoli also signed a preliminary accord on energy exploration, which Egypt and Greece also oppose, Reuters reported.
However, Turkey has recently switched course under its “One Libya” policy, ramping up contacts with Libya’s eastern faction as well.
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