Arrests continue as part of the investigation into deadly floods that devastated the eastern Libyan town of Derna on September 10. The country’s attorney general announced in a press release published on the night of Thursday September 28 to Friday September 29 the placement in pre-trial detention of four Libyan officials, including two members of the city’s municipal council. The latter are suspected of having responsibility for the “poor management of the administrative and financial missions incumbent on them”.
Eight people, including the former mayor of Derna, had already been imprisoned on September 25 in connection with this affair.
Storm Daniel hit eastern Libya on the night of September 10 to 11, including Derna, a city of 100,000 inhabitants bordering the Mediterranean, leading to the rupture of two dams upstream and causing a flood of the magnitude of a tsunami, which swept away everything in its path.
According to a latest provisional report from the eastern government, the floods caused 3,893 deaths, a figure which residents say is largely underestimated. Wracked by divisions since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya is governed by two rival administrations: one in Tripoli, in the west of the country, led by Abdel Hamid Dbeibah and recognized by the UN, the another in the East, embodied by Parliament and affiliated with the camp of Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
