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BENGHAZI, Libya - At least 2,300 people were killed in Libya and thousands more were reported missing after catastrophic flash floods broke river dams and tore through an eastern coastal city, devastating entire neighbourhoods.

As global concern spread, multiple nations offered to urgently send aid and rescue teams to help the war-scarred country that has been overwhelmed by what one UN official labelled "a calamity of epic proportions".

Massive destruction shattered the Mediterranean coastal city of Derna, home to about 100,000 people, where multi-storey buildings on the river banks collapsed and houses and cars vanished in the raging waters.

Libyan emergency services reported an initial death toll of more than 2,300 in Derna alone and said over 5,000 people remained missing while about 7,000 were injured.

“The situation in Derna is shocking and very dramatic,” said Osama Ali of the Tripoli-based Rescue and Emergency Service. “We need more support to save lives because there are people still under the rubble and every minute counts.”

The floods were caused by torrential rains from Storm Daniel, which made landfall in Libya on Sunday after earlier lashing Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Derna, 250 kilometres east of Benghazi, is ringed by hills and bisected by what is normally a dry riverbed in summer, but which has turned into a raging torrent of mud-brown water that also swept away several major bridges.

The number of dead given by the Libyan emergency service roughly matched the grim estimates provided by the Red Cross and by authorities in the eastern region, who have warned the death toll may yet rise further.

“The death toll is huge and might reach thousands,” said Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, three of whose volunteers were also reported dead.

“We confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 persons so far,” Ramadan told reporters via video link from neighbouring Tunisia.

Elsewhere in Libya’s east, aid group the Norwegian Refugee Council said “entire villages have been overwhelmed by the floods and the death toll continues to rise”.

“Communities across Libya have endured years of conflict, poverty and displacement. The latest disaster will exacerbate the situation for these people. Hospitals and shelters will be overstretched.”

‘Catastrophic’ situation 

Footage on Libyan TV showed dozens of bodies, wrapped in blankets or sheets, on Derna’s main square, awaiting identification and burial, and more bodies in Martouba, a village about 30 kilometres to the southeast.

More than 300 victims were buried Monday, many in mass graves, but vastly greater numbers of people were feared lost in the waters of the river that empties into the Mediterranean.

Oil-rich Libya is still recovering from the years of war and chaos that followed the 2011 NATO-backed popular uprising which toppled and killed longtime leader Muamer Qadhafi.

The North African country is divided between two rival governments, the UN-brokered, internationally recognised administration based in Tripoli in the west, and a separate administration in the disaster-hit east.

Access to the eastern region is limited. Phone and online links have been largely severed, but the administration’s prime minister Oussama Hamad has reported “more than 2,000 dead and thousands missing” in Derna alone.

A Derna city council official described the situation as “catastrophic” and asked for a “national and international intervention”, speaking to TV channel Libya Al Ahrar.

Rescue teams from Turkey have arrived in eastern Libya, according to authorities, and the UN and several countries offered to send aid, among them Algeria, Egypt, France, Italy, Qatar, Tunisia and the United States.

 ‘Harrowing images’ 

The storm also hit Benghazi and the hill district of Jabal Al-Akhdar. Flooding, mudslides and other major damage were reported from the wider region, with images showing overturned cars and trucks.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation, which has its main fields and terminals in eastern Libya, declared “a state of maximum alert” and suspended flights between production sites where it said activity was drastically reduced.

Libya’s UN-brokered government under Abdelhamid Dbeibah announced three days of national mourning on Monday and emphasised “the unity of all Libyans”.

Aid convoys from Tripoli were heading east and Dbeibah’s government announced the dispatch of two ambulance planes and a helicopter, as well as rescue teams, canine search squads and 87 doctors, and technicians to restore power.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote that Rome was “responding immediately to requests for support” with an assessment team on its way.

The United States embassy said it had “issued an official declaration of humanitarian need in response to the devastating floods in Libya”.

European Council president Charles Michel, writing on X, formerly Twitter, noted the “harrowing images from Libya” and vowed the “EU stands ready to help those affected by this calamity”.

MARRAKESH, Morocco — Hopes dimmed on Tuesday in Morocco's search for survivors, four days after a powerful earthquake killed more than 2,800 people, most of them in remote villages of the High Atlas Mountains.

Search-and-rescue teams from the kingdom and from abroad kept digging through the rubble of broken mud-brick homes, hoping for signs of life in a race against time following the 6.8-magnitude quake late Friday.

The Red Cross appealed for more than $100 million in aid to meet the "most pressing needs", including water, shelter, health and sanitation services.

"We need to make sure we avoid a second wave of disaster," said Caroline Holt, global director of operations at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

In the tourist hub of Marrakesh, whose UNESCO-listed historic centre suffered cracks and other major damage, many families still slept out in the open, huddled in blankets on public squares for fear of aftershocks.

But the need was most desperate in remote and poor mountain villages, many only reachable via winding dirt roads, where traditional adobe homes crumbled to rubble and dust and inhabitants have searched by hand for missing relatives.

Dozens of quake survivors crowded around the open back doors of a truck in Amizmiz waiting for the packages of food aid being handed out by volunteers on Tuesday.

“We have nothing. We lost everything. We’re here just to get some food to eat,” said 39-year-old Fatima Benhamoud, who received a box with beans, canned food and crackers.

Her home in Azmizmiz collapsed in the quake and her children barely managed to escape with their lives.

“But what are we going to do when people stop helping us?” she asked.

Remote villages destroyed 

Rescuers, aid trucks and private volunteers kept travelling to stricken villages in the barren foothills of the High Atlas, many accessible only via dusty dirt roads affected by rockfalls.

In the village of Asni, in the worst-hit province of Al Haouz, the army set up a field hospital with medical tents where more than 300 patients had been treated by Monday, Colonel Youssef Qamouss told AFP.

“The hospital was deployed 48 hours ago,” he said, adding that it has an X-ray unit, pharmacy and other facilities. “It started operating this morning and we’re already at more or less 300 patients.”

Many Moroccan citizens have rushed to help quake victims with food, water, blankets and other aid or by donating blood to help treat the injured, an effort joined by the national football team.

The quake was Morocco’s strongest on record and the deadliest to hit the North African country since a 1960 earthquake destroyed Agadir on the Atlantic coast, killing between 12,000 and 15,000 people.

Overall, at least 2,862 people have died and more than 2,500 been injured in the latest tragedy, according to an official toll issued late Monday.

Morocco has allowed rescue teams to come to its aid from Spain, Britain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but so far declined offers from several other nations, including the United States and Israel.

100,000 children affected 

Albert Vasquez, the Spanish unit’s communications officer, warned on Monday that “it’s very difficult to find people alive after three days” but stressed that “hope is still there”.

The United Nations estimated that more than 300,000 people have been affected, one third of them children, by the powerful seismic event that hit just after 11:00pm (2200 GMT) when most families were asleep.

“Thousands of homes have been destroyed, displacing families and exposing them to the elements at a time of year when temperatures drop down during the nighttime,” the UN children’s agency said.

“Schools, hospitals and other medical and educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed by the quakes, further impacting children.”

The rebuilding effort is expected to be enormous for the country which is already suffering economic woes and years of drought and now fears a downturn in the crucial tourism sector.

Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch chaired a Monday meeting on housing and reconstruction and then pledged that “citizens who have lost their homes will receive compensation”, adding that the details would be announced later.

BAGHDAD — Iraq has begun taking Iranian Kurdish opposition groups away from the country's border with Iran, its chief diplomat said on Tuesday, after Iran warned that its neighbour must take action.

"The necessary measures have been taken to remove these groups from the border areas, and they have been settled in distant camps in the centre of Kurdistan," an autonomous northern region of Iraq, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told a press conference.

A year ago, Tehran launched several deadly missile and drone strikes on Iraq's Kurdistan region.

The strikes came just after protests began in Iran over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurd arrested for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic's strict dress code.

Tehran accused the Kurdish groups in Iraq of fomenting the protests.

Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region hosts camps and rear bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish factions, which Iran has accused of serving Western or Israeli interests in the past.

In March, the two countries signed a "security" agreement covering their common border.

Tehran last month said that, under the deal, Iraq should disarm the groups before September 19, remove them from their bases and transfer them to camps.

"The September 19 deadline will under no circumstances be extended," and Iran will "assume its responsibility" if Iraq does not comply, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanani said at the time.

Without raising the question of disarmament, Hussein said his country had "begun implementing the agreement" and that he would bring this message to Tehran during a visit on Wednesday.

"We expect from the Iranian side that they do not turn to violence against Kurdistan or against the sovereignty of Iraq", he emphasised.

Hussein said negotiations with Iran would focus on how “to stop these opposition groups from crossing the border and using weapons against the Iranian government”.

They would also address the importance of “avoiding threats of violence, and threats of bombing certain areas of Iraqi Kurdistan”.

Until now, the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan has not spoken publicly about implementation of these measures, even though several meetings between officials of the Kurdistan region and Iran have taken place.

NEW YORK/AMMAN — Initial reports indicate that approximately 100,000 children have been impacted by the powerful earthquake that struck Morocco late on Friday night — the strongest seismic event to hit the Kingdom since 1960.  Like all major earthquakes, aftershocks are likely to continue in the days and weeks ahead, putting children and families at further risk.

The magnitude-6.8 quake struck just after 11pm on 8 September, at a time when most children and families will have been at home asleep. The United Nations estimates that more than 300,000 people have been affected in Marrakesh and in the High Atlas Mountains.

According to authorities, more than 2,2600 people have been killed, including children, with thousands more injured. These numbers are only likely to increase. While UNICEF doesn’t yet know the exact number of children killed and injured, latest estimates from 2022 indicate that children represent almost a third of the population in Morocco.

Thousands of homes have been destroyed, displacing families, and exposing them to the elements at a time of year when temperatures drop down during the nighttime.

Schools, hospitals and other medical and educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed by the quakes, further impacting children.

UNICEF has provided support to the children of Morocco since 1957, opening a country office in 1978 and has already mobilised humanitarian staff to support the immediate response on the ground, which is being led by the Kingdom of Morocco. 

In close coordination with the authorities and UN partners, UNICEF is ready to further support the humanitarian response as necessary to reach children and families affected with critical supplies and services.

WAD MADANI, Sudan — Sudan's General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, at war for the past five months with paramilitaries, is visiting neighbouring Eritrea on Monday, officials in both countries announced.

It is the fourth foreign trip in two weeks by Burhan, the northeast African country's de facto leader since a coup in 2021. Since August 29 he has visited Egypt, South Sudan and, last week, Qatar. Experts say it is part of an effort to burnish his diplomatic credentials in the event of peace negotiations to end his country's devastating war.

Eritrea's Minister of Information Yemane Meskel announced on X, formerly Twitter, that Burhan arrived in Asmara on Monday "for working visit", and published a picture of him seated beside Afwerki.

They would discuss "the future of bilateral relations and strengthening them", a press release from Burhan's office said earlier.

Eritrea, which borders Sudan to the southeast, is one of the rare neighbouring countries that has not welcomed any of the more than 1 million refugees fleeing the war, as the border has been closed since 2019.

Eritrea is one of the world's most isolated states.

At the beginning of September Burhan announced from Kassala, a Sudanese state bordering Eritrea, that Sudan's border posts were reopening. It is also a sign that security will intensify along a border long known for its porousness.

Afwerki participated in a meeting in Cairo mid-July with heads of state of Sudan's neighbours, condemning "a war launched for no reason" in Sudan.

Battles that began April 15 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have killed nearly 7,500 people, according to a conservative estimate from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

In one of the war's deadliest single attacks, air strikes killed at least 46 people and injured dozens Sunday at a market in the south of Sudan's capital Khartoum, local activists said.

On Monday, the Mayo neighbourhood resistance committee announced it was going to bury “12 unidentified bodies” after the “massacre of the Qouro market”. The committee is one of many groups that used to organise pro-democracy protests and now provide assistance during the war.

The armed forces control the skies over Khartoum, while RSF fighters continue to dominate the city’s streets.

On Sunday RSF accused the military of the “air strikes against civilians in the south of Khartoum”. The armed forces denied attacking the market, saying it “fully adheres to international humanitarian law”.

The war has uprooted more than five million people, including one million who fled across borders, according to United Nations figures.

BENGHAZI, Libya — At least 150 people were killed in freak floods in eastern Libya as a result of storm Daniel which has swept the Mediterranean, an official said on Monday.

Images filmed by residents of the disaster area showed massive mudslides, collapsed buildings and entire neighbourhoods submerged under water.

"At least 150 people were killed as a result of flooding and torrential rains left by storm Daniel in Derna, the Jabal Al Akhdar region and the suburbs of Al Marj," Mohamed Massoud, a spokesman for the Benghazi-based administration in Libya, told AFP.

"This is besides the massive material damage that struck public and private properties," he added.

He said the prime minister of the east-based government, Oussama Hamad, and the head of a rescue committee as well as other ministers had travelled to Derna to evaluate the extent of the damage.

Hamad's government, which rivals a UN-brokered, internationally recognised transitional administration in Tripoli, on Monday declared Derna a "disaster area".

Experts have described storm Daniel, which also struck parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria in recent days, killing at least 27 people, as “extreme in terms of the amount of water falling in a space of 24 hours”.

The storm struck eastern Libya on Sunday afternoon, notably the coastal town of Jabal Al Akhdar but also Benghazi, where a curfew was declared and schools closed for several days.

Rescue teams were also deployed in Derna, 900 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli.

With a population of 100,000, the city lies in the wadi of a river bearing the same name.

East Libyan authorities had “lost contact with nine soldiers during rescue operations” in the city, Massoud had said.

The United Nations mission in Libya on Monday said on X, formerly Twitter, that it was “closely following the emergency caused by severe weather conditions in the eastern region of the country”.

It expressed its condolences over the victims of the floods and said it was “ready to support efforts by local authorities and municipalities to respond to this emergency and provide urgent humanitarian assistance”.

Hundreds of residents are still believed to be trapped in difficult-to-reach areas as rescuers, backed by the army, try to come to their aid.

SIDON, Lebanon — At least six people have been killed and dozens wounded in clashes in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, first responders said Monday as fighting raged for a fifth day.

Violence broke out late Thursday in the Ain Al Helweh camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, just weeks after similar clashes pitted members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement against Islamists.

The toll has risen to at least "six dead, one of them killed on Monday, and more than 60 wounded", said Imad Hallak from the Palestinian Red Crescent's Lebanon branch.

The casualties include both fighters and civilians, he added.

An AFP correspondent in Sidon reported ongoing clashes with automatic gunfire and shelling, after fighting had subsided somewhat overnight.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said the city's southern entrance was closed to traffic.

The NNA had reported Saturday that three fighters and one civilian had been killed.

Ain Al Helweh is home to more than 54,000 registered refugees and thousands of Palestinians who joined them in recent years from neighbouring Syria, fleeing the civil war there.

The camp, Lebanon's largest, was created for Palestinians who were driven out or fled during the 1948 war at the time of Israel's creation.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Sunday that “hundreds of families have left the camp” since the clashes began.

Some 400 families were sheltering in a mosque, while others were taking refuge with relatives or in emergency shelters, it added in a report.

The Lebanese army said Sunday that shells hit two military sites near the camp, “leaving five soldiers wounded, one of them in critical condition”.

By long-standing convention, the army stays out of the Palestinian camps and leaves the factions to handle security there.

In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, the army warned “the relevant parties inside the camp” against endangering military sites, adding that it would “take appropriate measures”.

Five days of clashes that began in late July left 13 people dead and dozens wounded, in the worst outbreak of violence in the camp in years.

That fighting erupted after the death of an Islamist militant, followed by an ambush that killed five Fateh members including a military leader.

Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the UN agency.

Most live in Lebanon’s 12 official camps, and face a variety of legal restrictions including on employment.

TAFEGHAGHTE, Morocco — Moroccans on Sunday mourned the victims of a devastating earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people as rescue teams raced to find survivors trapped under the rubble of flattened villages.

The strongest-ever quake recorded in the North African country has killed at least 2,012 people and injured over 2,000, many seriously, according to the latest official figures.

Friday's 6.8-magnitude quake struck 72 kilometres southwest of the tourist hub of Marrakesh, wiping out entire villages in the hills of the Atlas mountain range.

"I've lost everything," said Lahcen, a resident of the mountain village of Moulay Brahim, whose wife and four children were among those killed.

Rescue workers recovered the bodies of Lahcen's three daughters from the rubble of their home, but had not yet found the remains of his wife and son.

"I can't do anything about it now, I just want to get away from the world and mourn," he said.

Troops and emergency services have scrambled to reach remote mountain villages where victims were still feared trapped under the rubble of houses, many of which were constructed from mud bricks.

Al Haouz province, site of the epicentre, suffered the most deaths with 1,293, followed by Taroudant province where 452 lives were lost, authorities reported.

Citizens on Sunday rushed to hospitals in Marrakesh to donate blood to help the many injured.

‘Everyone lost family’ 

Bouchra, another resident of Moulay Brahim, dried her tears with her scarf as she watched men wielding pickaxes to dig graves for the victims.

“My cousin’s grandchildren are dead,” she said. “I saw the devastation of the earthquake live and I’m still shaking. It’s like a ball of fire that swallowed up everything in its path.

“Everyone here has lost family, whether in our village or elsewhere in the region.”

Many residents of the usually bustling tourist hotspot of Marrakesh spent a second night sleeping out on the streets, huddled together under blankets and among bags filled with their belongings.

Fatema Satir, a Marrakesh resident, said many were sleeping in the street for fear of their houses collapsing.

“Look where all these people are sleeping,” said Satir. “There is no help for us. Our houses have been cracked, others destroyed, like my daughter’s house which was wiped out. We are in a chaotic state.”

In the city’s historic Jemaa Al Fna square, about 20 people were huddled on the ground, wrapped in blankets, while others were staying on the lawn of the nearby town hall, with its 12th century ramparts partially collapsed.

“We spent the night outside the old town, in a safe place,” said Maria, a Spanish tourist.

The kingdom declared three days of national mourning while countries including France, Israel, Italy, Spain and the United States have offered aid.

US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said: “We’ve got search and rescue teams ready to deploy... We are also ready to release funds at the right time.”

Spain meanwhile said it would send search and rescue teams and other aid after it received a formal request for help from Rabat.

Algeria, which has long had rocky relations with neighbouring Morocco, opened its airspace, which had been closed for two years, to flights carrying humanitarian aid and evacuating the injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country in recent years established ties with Morocco, offered to send search-and-rescue teams, declaring that “Israel stands by Morocco in its difficult time”.

‘Under the debris’ 

The Red Cross warned that it could take years to repair the damage.

“It won’t be a matter of a week or two... We are counting on a response that will take months, if not years,” said Hossam Elsharkawi, its Middle East and North Africa director.

The village of Tafeghaghte, 60 kilometres southwest of Marrakesh, was almost entirely destroyed by the quake, an AFP team reported, with very few buildings still standing.

“Three of my grandchildren and their mother are dead,” said 72-year-old Omar Benhanna. “They’re still under the debris. It wasn’t so long ago that we were playing together.”

Residents buried around 70 victims on Saturday, cries and screams punctuating the funeral rites.

In the evening, television channels broadcast aerial images showing entire villages of clay houses in the Al Haouz region completely destroyed.

“The public authorities are still mobilised to speed up rescue operations and evacuate the injured,” the interior ministry said.

The tremor was also felt in the coastal cities of Rabat, Casablanca and Agadir, where many panicked residents rushed onto the streets in the middle of the night.

The quake was the deadliest in Morocco since a 1960 tremor destroyed Agadir, a disaster in which more than 12,000 people died.