Sept. 15 - Floodwaters have destroyed buildings and washed people under rubble, and residents and aid workers in the battered Libyan city of Derna, are grappling with thousands of bodies washed ashore or rotting under the rubble.
Rescue teams search for bodies on a beach after flooding in Derna, Libya, on September 16, 2023.
The World Health Organization and other aid organizations strongly urge Libyan authorities to stop burying flood victims in improper mass graves, which can cause long-term psychological trauma to families and health risks if close to water sources.
A UN report says more than 1,000 people have been buried in this way since the country, torn apart by a decade of conflict and political chaos, was torn apart by torrential rains that caused two dams to burst. Thousands have lost their lives and thousands more are unaccounted for.
"The streets are littered with bodies, washed back to shore by floodwaters and buried under collapsed buildings and rubble," the ICRC's African forensic manager (Bilal Sablo) told a press conference in Geneva. In just two hours, a colleague of mine counted more than 200 bodies on a beach near Derna. ”
Ibrahim al-Arabi, the health minister of Libya's western government in Tripoli, told the media that he was convinced that groundwater was contaminated with a mixture of carcasses, animal carcasses, garbage and chemicals. He strongly urged people not to approach the well in Derna.
Mohammed Kabisi, director of the Der Nawahda Hospital, said a field hospital is treating patients with chronic diseases who need regular care. He said there were fears of the spread of the waterborne disease, but so far no records of cholera had been recorded.
Derna, the center of severe damage in eastern Libya, was devastated by floodwaters when dams upstream of the city burst, sweeping through the usually dry riverbed and flooding entire residential areas.
The IOM's mission to Libya said more than 5,000 people were estimated to have died in flood-affected areas, including 3,922 in hospitals, while more than 38,640 were left homeless. Officials said the true death toll could be much higher.
"We should worry about epidemics!" Nuri Mohammed, 60, said in a bakery that offered free bread: "Bodies are buried underground... Now the corpses began to smell. ”
UN health agencies join the ICRC and the International Federation of Red Crescent Societies in calling for better burial management. Kazushin Kojima, medical officer for biosafety and biosecurity at WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said in a statement: "We urge community authorities affected by the tragedy not to rush for mass burials or mass cremations. ”
They called for the demarcation and documentation of individual graves, noting that hasty burials could cause mental and legal distress to families.
Typically, the bodies of victims of natural disasters pose a threat to health unless they are located in or near a fresh water supply, as the bodies can leak waste, the report said.
A doctor in Derna said this week that they would photograph the unidentified bodies before burial so relatives could identify them later. The U.N. report on Thursday said more than 1,000 bodies were in Derna, and more than 100 bodies were also buried in massive pits in another coastal city hit by flooding.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, which has a team of 100 people in Libya, said body management was the most urgent issue. Ahmed Byram, of the NRC, said: "I heard from my team that there were mass graves where rescuers were calling: 'Don't bring us food, don't bring us water, bring us body bags'. ”
On Friday, the ICRC sent a cargo plane to Benghazi, Libya's largest city, carrying 5,000 body bags. Other aid also arrived from abroad.
The Danish Refugee Council indicated that a team of explosive ordnance disposal experts was being dispatched because flooding could lead to the risk of mine detonation.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has sent three planes and a ship loaded with supplies, and now two more amphibious landing ships carrying 122 vehicles, including ambulances and rescue vehicles.
Some residents were frustrated by the failure of Libya's divided local government to act quickly. The 50-year-old security official who lives in Susa said: "Now that my children and wife and I are homeless, the state will not help us". Susa, a small town about 60 kilometers (38 miles) from Derna, was also devastated by flooding.
U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said at a news conference in Geneva that Libya needed equipment to search for people trapped in mud and damaged buildings, as well as primary health care measures to prevent cholera outbreaks.