Horror in Libya as body of young girl found in flooding aftermath – as UN official warns of cholera outbreak risk

Published

2 years ago

September 15, 2023

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A potential cholera outbreak could add to misery in the Libyan city of Derna, where the sheer number of people dead or unaccounted for after a massive flood is overwhelming survivors.

The number of fatalities has soared to 11,300, according to the Libyan Red Crescent, with a further 10,100 reported missing as hopes of finding survivors diminish.

Two Sky News TV crews witnessed horrific scenes after reaching the eastern port city – including the tragic discovery of the body of a young girl, perhaps aged 10 or 11.

Desperate search for survivors continues – latest updates

The United Nations (UN) has warned the country urgently needs equipment to find those trapped in sludge and wrecked buildings – and raised concerns of a cholera outbreak.

“Priority areas are shelter, food, key primary medical care because of the worry of cholera, the worry of lack of clean water,” said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths.

Reports suggest almost a quarter of the city has been washed away and reduced to an apocalyptic wasteland, following a massive flood fed by the breaching of two dams in heavy rains.

More than 38,640 people are displaced in the northeast of the country, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Libya said on Friday.

‘Graveyard’ city smashed by water from ‘dam of death’

Sky’s Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir, reporting from one of the collapsed dams, said it is now known as “the dam of death“.

Although it has been days since the disaster struck, she said survivors are still in a complete state of shock – with some coming to the site to look at the catastrophe.

“The flood has completely changed their lives,” she said. “One person told me: ‘This is not a natural disaster, this is a catastrophe.'”

Sky News will air a special programme – Libya floods: The city swept away – at midday on Saturday.

Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford, reporting from the centre of Derna, said the city was like “one big graveyard”.

“Everywhere you look here – it’s 360° destruction,” she said. “There is a strong smell in the air of corpses.”

“The force of the water was so strong from the two dams which collapsed that the locals say it sounded like an explosion, after explosion, after explosion,” said Crawford.

“Massive tonnes of rocks, whole apartment blocks, were just swept away.

“There are three bridges that have been swept away.

“Building after building has been levelled or smashed through.

“They had – according to those who survived – about 20 minutes to get out of the way of this torrent of water.”

‘Someone should pay for these deaths’ after girl’s body found

There was a collective intake of horror when the “unmistakable shape of a small human” was discovered, Crawford added.

It was the body of a young girl – maybe aged 10 or 11.

Witnesses were stunned into silence, she said, describing it as “utterly dreadful”.

Two relief workers raced down with a black body bag and the girl was hurriedly placed inside it.

People searching for relatives say they had plenty of warning about Storm Daniel before it hit.

But what followed was a catastrophic culmination of human errors.

Gandi Mohammed Hammoud, a structural engineer, said it was down to negligence.

He said there had been plenty of warnings from experts about the poor state of the city’s two dams.

“They should have known,” he told Sky News.

Mr Hammoud said he watched as his neighbours and friends screamed in terror as the torrent of water tore apart their homes and flats.

He added: “Someone should pay for these deaths.

“Someone should be held accountable for what happened here.”

Officials have warned unexploded ordnances – remnants of war such as unexploded bombs, mines, shells and grenades – pose a risk for those involved in recovering the dead.

‘Bodies are littering the streets’

Most of the dead have been buried in mass graves outside Derna, while others are being transferred to nearby towns and cities.

“Bodies are littering the streets, washing back on shore and are buried under collapsed buildings and debris. In just two hours, one of my colleagues counted over 200 bodies on the beach near Derna,” said Bilal Sablouh, regional forensics manager for Africa for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The ICRC has sent a cargo flight to Benghazi with 5,000 body bags.

Rescue and relief operations have also been complicated by political divides in the country, which has been at war since a 2011 uprising toppled long-ruling dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Despite a 2020 ceasefire ending most major warfare, territory remains controlled by rival armed factions.

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.

“The instability, poor governance, corruption and mafia-style politicking, including a network of people-smuggling gangs, have all conspired to make this tragedy,” Crawford added.

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

48 mins ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

48 mins ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

48 mins ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.