Region

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya's flood-devastated port city of Derna will host an international conference next month to aid reconstruction efforts, authorities in the east of the divided country said on Friday.

There was no immediate reaction from the internationally recognised government in Tripoli nor any details on how the rival administration would accommodate delegates in a city where entire neighbourhoods have been swept away.

A tsunami-sized flash flood broke through two ageing dams upstream from Derna after a hurricane-strength storm lashed the area on September 10, sweeping thousands of people into the sea.

"The government invites the international community to participate in the conference planned for October 10 in Derna to present modern, rapid projects for the reconstruction of the city," the eastern administration said in a statement.

It said the conference was being held in "response to the demands of residents of the stricken city of Derna and other towns that suffered damage" during the flooding.

Despite a wave of nationwide solidarity since the flood, there was no immediate show of support for the proposed conference from the Tripoli-based government of interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

And even the office of strongman Khalifa Haftar, the main military backer of the eastern administration, questioned how many donor governments would attend.

“Are donor countries going to take part or are they going to wait for a conference organised by Dbeibah?” Haftar’s spokesman Ahmad al-Mismari asked. “This political polarisation has harmed Libyans.”

Libya has been wracked by division and on-off conflict ever since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed veteran dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

A bloody 2019 assault on Tripoli by Haftar’s forces ended in defeat by Dbeibah loyalists and an August 2020 ceasefire that largely holds.

Mass burials 

There is still no widely accepted death toll for the floods which devastated Derna and nearby coastal towns.

The latest official death toll released on Friday evening stood at 3,753 but the eventual count is expected to be far higher, with international aid groups giving estimates of up to 10,000 people missing.

Bodies are still being found in large numbers, under the debris or on beaches where they have washed up after being swept out to the sea by the flood.

On Friday, dozens of bodies were delivered in a lorry and two pick-ups to the village cemetery in Martouba, 27 kilometres southeast of Derna, for burial, footage posted on social media showed.

Libyan media said 200 people were buried in the cemetery in a single day.

The International Organization for Migration said Thursday that more than 43,000 people have been displaced from the disaster zone.

It said a “lack of water supply is reportedly driving many displaced out of Derna”.

In Susa, about 60 kilometres to the west, residents complained that they too had no access to drinking water after the flood badly damaged a desalination plant.

Instead, volunteers have to “bring water from nearby cities in big trucks”, 34-year-old Ahmed Saleh told AFP.

Mobile and internet services were restored in Derna on Thursday following a two-day disruption that came after demonstrations by angry residents on Monday.

The protests saw hundreds of demonstrators gather outside the city’s grand mosque, chanting slogans against the eastern-based parliament and its leader and calling for accountability over the high death toll.

Amnesty International reported “arrests of critics and protesters” in Derna and criticised “efforts to choreograph and control media access”.

The dams that burst had developed cracks as far back as the 1990s, Libya’s top prosecutor has said, as residents accused authorities of negligence.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group said in a report issued on Tuesday that a deluge of the magnitude seen in eastern Libya was an event that occurred once every 300-600 years.

They said such downpours were both more likely and heavier because of human-caused global warming, resulting in up to 50 per cent more rain.

DERNA — Libya's devastating flood has transformed Derna from a busy port welcoming fishing boats and ships loaded with goods and passengers into a dump brimming with rubble, car wrecks and dead bodies.

Tugboat captain Ali Al Mismari, 60, recalled the night of September 10 when torrential rains caused by Storm Daniel battered the eastern Libyan city, bursting two dams and wiping out entire neighbourhoods.

At first, Mismari told AFP, he wanted to take his boat, the "Irasa", out of the harbour to avoid putting the crew at risk and to avoid damage to the vessel.

But in the chaos of the storm, with water levels rapidly rising, he was unable to see the seawalls surrounding the port and navigate a safe exit.

"There was nothing [to do] but pray," he said.

When day broke, the scale of the devastation became clear.

Mismari said he saw "massive trucks, car tyres, people, houses, entire palm trees... heaters, washing machines, refrigerators" had all been washed into the harbour by the flash flood.

The official death toll from the disaster stands at more than 3,300 — but the eventual count is expected to be far higher, with international aid groups giving estimates of up to 10,000 people missing.

'Zero visibility' 

Since the tsunami-sized flood lashed Derna, port workers, fishermen and passers-by have largely abandoned the seafront, and only a handful of vessels, the Irasa included, were still there.

The tugboat was enlisted along with local and foreign teams to clear the bottom of the harbour.

The walkways surrounding the port are now paved with items retrieved by divers.

Captain Mohamed Chalibta, head of the port authority's crisis management committee, said the search was concentrated on "objects that had sunk in the port", including cars with people still thought to be inside.

An Emirati team, equipped with boats and jet skis, scoured one part of the harbour.

But the water was dark brown, filled with mud brought by the flood, and there was virtually "zero visibility", according to one of the divers.

The Emirati search mission chief, Col. Ali Abdullah Al Naqbi, was giving directions to his team, stressing the need to take full precautions.

Two by two, scuba divers secured with safety ropes descended from their yellow boat.

One emerged from the muddy water after a short while, and said: "We tied [a rope] to a car. We can't see anything."

Another diver meanwhile found a second car.

Back on their boat, other team members helped the divers remove foliage that had become stuck on them and sprinkled fresh water on their faces.

The Emirati team, in coordination with Libyan authorities, called in a crane that pulled one of the mangled wrecks out the water.

Survivor in fridge 

As it was being removed, mud, water and what appeared to be human remains spilled out of the vehicle.

Lowered onto the dock, Libyan men in white coats, gloves and face masks took over to check the vehicle for bodies, but on this occasion they found none.

Officials expect the process of clearing the port to take a long time.

Rescuers are also searching the sea beyond the harbour, with maritime experts saying many bodies may have been carried eastward by the current.

Hafez Obeid, head of the Libyan forensic team, said the salinity of the water helps to preserve bodies, making the identification process easier than for corpses found on land.

Aboard the Irasa, captain Mismari said "private fishing boats were the first to rush to the rescue" on the night of the disaster.

Next to him, technician Taoufik Akrouch, 61, recalled that "the water level rose above the dock by about one-and-a-half metres".

The Irasa began tilting violently and the crew started its engines before cutting mooring lines.

At dawn, they heard a cry for help.

They found a survivor — a naked woman floating inside a refrigerator, according to two crew members.

They said she asked them: "Where is my sister?"

Another survivor rescued by Mismari's team, an Egyptian, could not say how he got to the harbour.

"He had been sleeping, and then found himself there," Mismari said. "Maybe he had been unconscious."

KANSAFRA, Syria — In a battered village in Syria’s last main opposition bastion, one resident has hewn a bomb shelter out of rock to stay on his land and protect his family from attacks.

Kansafra, in the south of Idlib province, often comes under Syrian army fire targeting jihadists who control the area, while Russian warplanes circle above and carry out air strikes in support of ally Damascus.

Many families have fled the village, located less than two kilometres from the front lines.

Now, just a few shops remain open, while heavily damaged buildings line the streets.

But Ahmad Khalil, 53, would not leave.

“People keep telling us to go to a camp for displaced people, but these camps are a thousand times worse,” he said.

Khalil carved out the shelter next to his house in 2017.

Winding, narrow steps lead down to a small room with a low, curved roof, illuminated with sunlight from a shaft and a dim lamp.

“I prefer to stay here under the bombs,” he said, even though the shelter is “like a grave”.

The rebel-held Idlib region in Syria’s northwest is home to about three million people, around half of them displaced from other parts of the country during more than a decade of conflict.

Many live in impoverished tented settlements, dependent on international aid.

Extremist group Hayat Tahrir A-Sham, led by Syria’s former Al Qaeda affiliate, controls swathes of Idlib, as well as parts of the adjacent provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks, so Khalil’s family has been spending more time underground.

Whenever they hear shelling or warplanes, they run to the shelter.

“There are always aircraft flying over the village and the area, it never stops. The life we lead is worse than death,” said Khalil, who has two wives and seven children.

Mostly bereft of furniture, the shelter is covered with basic floor mats. Jars of vine leaves and other fermented vegetables are stored in the cool of the underground cave.

Buying bread means a walk to the nearest shop, at constant risk of attack.

Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.

The war has killed more than 500,000 people and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

With Russian and Iranian support, Damascus has clawed back much of the territory it lost to rebels early in the conflict.

In the family’s sombre shelter, two of Khalil’s young sons played with toys on the ground.

“My children dream of living like any other children, of going out and playing outside,” said the father.

But here, “there are no other children for them to play with... and the entire region is in ruins”, he added.

“This is no life.”

HANGZHOU, China — Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday began his first official trip to China in almost two decades, with Beijing saying the visit will take ties to a "new level" as the Arab leader seeks financial support to help rebuild his devastated country.

China is one of only a handful of countries outside the Middle East that Assad has visited since the 2011 start of a civil war that has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions more, and battered Syria's infrastructure and industry.

He arrived Thursday in the eastern city of Hangzhou, where he will attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games on Saturday.

The Syrian president’s Air China plane was greeted on the tarmac by jubilant music and rows of performers wearing colourful costumes, as Chinese and Syrian flags flapped in the sky, footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed.

He and other foreign leaders will meet Xi in Hangzhou, CCTV said.

According to the Syrian presidency, Assad will also travel to Beijing.

The visit is his first to China since 2004.

China’s foreign ministry said the visit will serve to take ties to a “new level”.

“China and Syria have a traditional and deep friendship,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular briefing.

“We believe that President Bashar Al Assad’s visit will further deepen mutual political trust and cooperation in various fields between the two countries,” she added.

Beijing has long provided Damascus with diplomatic support, particularly at the UN Security Council where it is a permanent member.

“This visit represents an important rupture in the diplomatic isolation and the political siege imposed on Syria,” Damascus-based political scientist Oussama Dannoura told AFP.

“China has been breaking Western taboos that seek to prevent a number of states from dealing with countries that Washington considers isolated,” he added.

The visit comes as China expands its engagement in the Middle East.

This year Beijing brokered a deal that saw longtime regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Damascus-backer Iran agree to restore ties and reopen their respective embassies.

The detente was followed by Syria’s return to the Arab fold at a summit in Saudi Arabia in May, ending more than a decade of regional isolation.

China pledged $2 billion in investments in Syria in 2017, Haid noted — funds that have “yet to materialise”.

For Syria, joining the initiative “hasn’t resulted in significant Chinese investments in Syria, either from the Chinese government or the private sector”, he said.

DERNA, Libya — Libya's flood disaster, which killed thousands in the city of Derna, also displaced more than 43,000 people, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said Thursday.

A tsunami-sized flash flood broke through two ageing river dams upstream from the coastal city after the Mediterranean Storm Daniel lashed the area on September 10.

It razed entire neighbourhoods, sweeping untold thousands of people into the sea.

The official death toll stands at more than 3,300, but the eventual count is expected to be far higher, with international aid groups giving estimates of up to 10,000 people missing.

"An estimated 43,059 individuals have been displaced by the floods in north-eastern Libya," the IOM said, adding that a "lack of water supply is reportedly driving many displaced out of Derna" to other areas.

"Urgent needs include food, drinking water and mental health and psychosocial support," it said.

Mobile and Internet services were meanwhile restored after a two-day disruption, following protests on Monday that saw angry residents blame the authorities for the high death toll.

Authorities had blamed the communications outage on "a rupture in the optical fibre" link to Derna, but some internet users and analysts charged there had been a deliberate "blackout".

Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah announced that communications had been restored in the east, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

War-scarred Libya remains split between Dbeibah's UN-backed and nominally interim government in the west, and another in the disaster-hit east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Suspects 'identified' 

The dams that were overwhelmed by the torrential rains of September 10 had developed cracks as far back as the 1990s, Libya's top prosecutor has said, as residents accused authorities of negligence.

Much of Libya’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair in the chaos since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed leader Muammar Qadhafi.

Haftar’s forces seized Derna in 2018, then a stronghold of radical Islamists, and with the reputation as a protest stronghold since Kadhafi’s days.

The demonstrators had gathered on Monday outside Derna’s grand mosque and chanted slogans against the parliament in eastern Libya and its leader Aguilah Saleh.

In a televised interview Wednesday evening, Libya’s Prosecutor General Al Seddik Al Sour vowed “rapid results” in the investigation into the cause of the tragedy.

He added that those suspected of corruption or negligence “have already been identified”, without naming them.

Survivors in have Derna meanwhile faced new threats.

The United Nations warned this week that disease outbreaks could bring “a second devastating crisis” to the flood-hit areas.

Local officials, aid agencies and the World Health Organisation “are concerned about the risk of disease outbreak, particularly from contaminated water and the lack of sanitation”, the UN said.

Libya’s disease control centre has warned that mains water in the disaster zone is polluted and urged residents not to use it.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Huthi rebels put a positive spin on historic but inconclusive talks in Riyadh on Wednesday as diplomatic efforts increased to end Yemen's bitter war.

The five days of talks were "positive", Saudi officials and a senior Huthi said, after the rebel delegation ended the first public visit to the Saudi capital since hostilities broke out between the two sides.

Underlining the change in atmosphere, the delegation included Hosain Homood Ala'zi, who in 2017 appeared on a Saudi list of wanted Houthis with a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Riyadh mobilised an international military coalition against the Huthis in March 2015, months after the northern fighters with links to Tehran had seized the capital and threatened to overrun the country bordering southern Saudi Arabia.

Hundreds of thousands have died in the fighting or from its impacts, including famine, and millions have been displaced in what the United Nations calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

As the Houthis left, the top diplomats of the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a key coalition member, and influential in Yemen's government-held south, met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan and the UAE's Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, welcomed the Riyadh talks "aimed at achieving a roadmap to end the conflict through a Yemeni-led political process under UN auspices".

"The secretary and the foreign ministers agreed that cooperation among the three governments and Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council is essential to advancing UN-led peace efforts," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Separately, Sheikh Abdullah met the chairman of the Yemen government’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al Alimi, discussing “international efforts made to reach a political solution to the Yemeni crisis”, the UAE’s official WAM news agency said.

The Saudi-Houthi talks were the latest ray of light for Yemen, which has endured decades of instability and where three-quarters of the population are dependent on aid.

Optimism has increased since Saudi Arabia and Iran ended a seven-year rupture in ties in March, with nearly 900 prisoners released in an exchange deal soon afterwards and a Saudi delegation holding talks in Sanaa in April.

Meanwhile a UN-brokered ceasefire is largely holding, despite officially expiring last October.

Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel Salam, who led the delegation, indicated both sides were looking for solutions to problems that were raised in the Yemeni capital in April.

“We discussed some options and alternatives to overcome the issues of disagreement that the previous round touched upon,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.

Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid Bin Salman said he “reaffirmed our commitment... to reach a comprehensive political solution under UN supervision” in talks with the Houthis.

“We look forward to the success of these critical discussions,” Prince Khalid wrote on X.

The process appears to have snagged on Huthi demands which include payment of their civil servants’ salaries by the displaced Yemeni government, and the launch of new destinations from Sanaa airport.

Ali Al Qhoom, a member of the Houthis’ political council, said “there will be a new round of negotiations”, but he also made no mention of any concrete achievements out of Riyadh.

The talks were “serious and positive”, Qhoom posted on X, expressing optimism that outstanding issues would be resolved.

JERICHO, Palestinian Territories — Israeli occupation forces killed a 19-year-old Palestinian in a pre-dawn raid in the West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence in the occupied territory showed no sign of any letup.

Durgham Al Akhras was killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers raiding Aqabat Jaber refugee camp near the city of Jericho to carry out arrests, the ministry said.

Separately, the Palestinian health ministry announced the death of Yasser Mussa, 29, who was wounded during an Israeli raid on Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank late on Tuesday.

In total, four Palestinians were killed in the Jenin operation in which Israeli troops were backed by a drone, the ministry said, including three fighters.

They were identified by the ministry as Atta Yasser Atta Musa, Mahmoud Ali Saadi, Mahmoud Khaled Ararawi and Rafat Omar Khamayseh.

The Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, had said earlier that two of those killed in Jenin were its members.

The Islamic Jihad said one of the other two killed was a member of the armed group.

Hundreds of mourners attended the funerals of the dead on Wednesday.

Rising bloodshed 

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and its troops routinely carry out incursions into areas such as Jenin, which are nominally under the Palestinian Authority’s security control.

In July, the army carried out its biggest raid in years on the Jenin camp, in which 13 Palestinians including militants and children were killed.

One soldier died during the raid, also by Israeli fire “following an incident of mistaken identification”, the army said days later.

At least 238 Palestinians have been killed so far this year in incidents linked to the conflict.

In recent days, unrest has also surged in the Gaza Strip, with Palestinians holding protests that have turned violent along the border with Israel.

Palestinians have thrown rocks and explosives towards Israeli troops guarding the border fence, who have responded with tear gas and gunfire.

On Tuesday, one protester was killed by “occupation bullets”, said the health ministry in Gaza.

The Israeli army said it had used “riot dispersal means and sniper fire”.

The violence in Gaza follows an Israeli announcement late on Sunday that it would keep the Erez border crossing closed. The crossing remained shut on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said.

Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza have been prevented from entering Israel by the closure, which an Israeli NGO, Gisha, condemned as “collective punishment”.

Israel has issued work permits to some 18,500 Gazans, COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, said on Tuesday.

DERNA, Libya — In Libya’s flood-hit city of Derna, the Mediterranean Sea breeze mixes with the nauseating stench of human remains buried under the mud-caked rubble.

Ten days after a tsunami-scale flash flood ripped through the coastal city, razing entire neighbourhoods, many of the traumatised survivors are still waiting to learn the fate of missing relatives.

Few of them have any hope of seeing their loved ones alive.

Bodies are still trapped inside shattered buildings and below the mountains of mud now turning into choking dust, as emergency response crews keep up their grim search.

Untold numbers of people were swept away by the raging waters and into the sea when two upstream dams burst late at night after Storm Daniel’s torrential rains lashed the area on September 10.

Hundreds of bodies have since washed back onto the shores.

The official death toll stands at more than 3,300, but the eventual count is expected to be far higher, with international aid groups giving estimates of up to 10,000 people missing.

Entire families have vanished, said Derna resident Mohamad Badr as he was clearing his house of mud and trying to salvage what furniture and household items he could.

“The Bouzid family, the Fachiani family, the Khalidi family, these are entire families,” the 23-year-old man told AFP, his hands and clothes stained with mud.

“There is no one left.”

‘Neighbours screamed’ 

On the flat roof of his house, he and five other workers have placed sofas, cushions, curtains, clothes, an exercise treadmill and electrical equipment.

“God knows if they still work,” Badr said.

Emotion overtook him when he recounted how he survived the flood night that brought him “more than one nightmare”.

“I heard a lot of screaming,” he said. “It was neighbours who screamed until they died.”

“It was dark and there was no one” to help them, he said.

When the muddy waters came crashing into the family home, Badr clung to an air conditioner fixed just below the ceiling.

Very quickly he could barely keep his head above water, and then the A/C unit broke off the wall.

Badr was able to cling onto a floating couch for the next few hours, until the waters gradually receded.

“My brother died after bleeding for hours from an arm injury,” said Badr.

His parents, three children and sister-in-law survived, but he has had no news of his uncles and their families.

Thirty-two of his relatives are missing after their building was reduced to rubble that remains inaccessible.

“Maybe their bodies were found and no one was able to identify them,” said Badr.

 Mass graves 

In the first days after the disaster, rescue teams and volunteers hastily buried hundreds of unidentified bodies in mass graves.

DNA samples were taken in the hopes they could be identified later, authorities said.

Elsewhere in the shattered city, Mahmud Erqiq, 50, has been offering drinking water and refreshments to the rescue workers.

With misty eyes, he also listed the names of neighbouring families of whom he has had no news.

“The Karaz family, the Bou Chatila family, the Ghariani family, the Snidel family, the Tashani family...”

The day after the floods, he said, “I recovered 20 bodies in my neighbourhood”.

Erqiq’s apartment, located on an upper floor, was spared, but he lost the metal workshop that was his livelihood.

Standing nearby was Miloud Boussertia, still visibly in shock after losing 25 family members.

“Our building collapsed. There were 25 people inside and they all died,” said the 40-year-old who happened to be away from home when the disaster struck.

Boussertia said he lost “up to 70” members of his extended family in the city.

He has stuck close to the rescue teams. “As soon as they find a body, we come and open the body bag,” he said.

But even this no longer brings certainty, added Boussertia, because at this stage often “the features are no longer recognisable”.