The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Rana Ksaifi, confirmed on Tuesday that the situation in the Libyan city of Derna is “horrific”, and the extent of the destruction is unfathomable.
While participating in a press conference in Geneva via video from Benghazi, she added that the disaster in Derna is one of the worst disasters she witnessed during her work in the humanitarian field for 19 years.
Houses, schools, buildings and shops were flooded with water, some of them were completely destroyed, and thousands of people lost everything, and their loved ones, continued Ksaifi.
On September 10, 2023; Hurricane Daniel swept through several areas in eastern Libya, causing great devastation. As a result, many countries sent aid teams to assist in rescue and relief operations and to recover bodies that were spread in the thousands, especially in Derna.
The hurricane and floods left 11,470 dead, 10,100 missing, and 40,000 displaced in the northeast of the country, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Libya has been suffering from a brutal civil war for years, which has caused thousands of deaths and injuries among civilians, and left massive destruction to the country’s infrastructure.
