Libya floods: People in Derna use bare hands to dig for survivors – but find only remains
Libya is a country in anguish.
Her people are suffering a fresh kind of horror after years of civil war, fighting, corruption, greed and people smuggling.
Now floods have devastated the port city of Derna and the communities and villagers around.
And what’s so much worse is that the natural disaster caused by Storm Daniel, which has been sweeping across European counties, has been compounded by a man-made catastrophe.
Those in the worst-affected town of Derna are calling it a disaster of “biblical proportions”.
Civilians in the town have been using their bare hands to try to dig for survivors… instead they’re finding just the remains of victims.
The airport at Benghazi has been bustling with people trying to get home or go to the area themselves to track down missing relatives. There are an estimated 10,000 unaccounted for.
It’s hard to know exact figures but the civilians on the ground are stunned and terrified at the scale of the devastation this torrent of water caused.
They expect the death toll to rise substantially but with little co-ordination on the ground, accurate figures are tough to come by.
The collapse of not one but two dams in Derna unleashed a terrible violent water force which upended vehicles, tore down houses, apartment blocks and schools.
People searching for survivors in Derna, Libya. Pic: AP
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‘A lot of people are under the mud’
One shocked survivor showed us pictures of the utterly flattened muddy landscape in front of him where dozens of buildings once stood.
“They’ve all just gone… Derna has gone,” Maged told us.
“I can’t believe it. I’ve lived 27 years or so in Britain but I was working on my retirement home here in Derna where I am from. It used to be beautiful. Now there’s nothing left. I don’t even know if I can stay here now. The memories are just too hard.”
Another survivor told us of the despair at the complete destruction of the area.
“It is a disaster of biblical proportions”, Mere Bijou said.
“And our government is to blame… anyone in charge in Libya is to blame. Everyone knew Storm Daniel was coming but they did nothing about it. They didn’t protect us, they didn’t try to save us, they didn’t do anything.”
Damage from massive flooding is seen in Derna. Pic: AP
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International aid has been promised – by the UK, France, UAE and Turkey – but those on the ground haven’t seen much evidence of it.
“I’m told Turkey is helping, France is helping, other countries are helping,” Mere said.
“But we haven’t seen them… where are they? There’s no international help at all. It’s just chaos.
“We’ve got a small group of four people – all civilians – and we’ve pulled out eight peoples’ remains on our own [in] the last few hours.”
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Libya: ‘Disaster driven by human error’
Libyans are worn down by years and years of poor governance many of which date back to 2011 and the NATO-backed ousting of the country’s autocratic dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, during the period which became known as the Arab Spring.
Gaddafi was killed and the country dived into instability with rival armed militias vying for power and territory.
The divisions and fighting led to a bitter civil war and two pseudo governments splitting the country into two.
The West-based authority is recognised by the United Nations while the east is run by Khalifa Haftar, a military strongman who supported Gaddafi.
Emergency crews working near a damaged building in Derna
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Libya: Sea ‘bringing in new bodies’
The years of strife, weak and corrupt governance, corruption and negligence has meant Libya was utterly unprepared for coping with a disaster, described by some as apocalyptic.
While the devastating earthquake in Morocco took the country by surprise, Storm Daniel announced its arrival by smashing its way through a string of countries.
But the Libyan authorities were simply not up to preparing for or coping with a disaster of this magnitude – and it is the Libyan people who’ve been killed, or left displaced in their thousands.
Some of the survivors are already fearing they will never be able to find their loved ones.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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