Libya: An Ongoing War Crime

We Came, We Saw, They’re Still Dying

The sudden catastrophic flood that drowned at least 20,000 people in the eastern city of Libya in the early morning of September 11 should not have come as a surprise. Derna has been swept by floods many times just in the last 100 years- 1941, 1959, 1968, with the 1959 event being especially violent. In the 1970s the Qaddafi government hired a Yugoslav company to build two dams on the normally dry riverbed upstream from the coastal city, which appear to have served their purpose in protecting Derna from another deluge in 1986.

Excuses for this disaster are coming in thick and fast, including, naturally, climate change. Agile Salah, “prime minister” of the eastern half of the country controlled by former (?) CIA asset Khalifa Haftar, seeks to avoid responsibility for official negligence by nominating “fate” as the guilty party. But the finger of blame must surely point to the Obama-Clinton regime, sponsors of the 2011 insurrection that overthrew and murdered Muammar Qaddafi. As Hilary Clinton memorably and disgustingly crowed: “We came, we saw, he died!”

Qaddafi was not the only Libyan who died, given that the country has been riven by civil war and lawlessness ever since, notably thanks to Haftar’s efforts to take total control. Mass graves consequent on heavy fighting around Tripoli in 2019-2020 are, according to Human Right Watch, still being unearthed.

Inevitably , the chaos has led to a breakdown of care and maintenance of vital infrastructure, including the vital dams protecting Derna. As recently as last November, Abdelwanees A. R. Ashoor, of Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Albeida, warned that “without immediate measures” to maintain the dams, the result could be a “huge flood” with catastrophic” effects. Nothing was done.

However, thanks to the destruction of the Libyan state and ongoing anarchy, a threat more serious than the Derna flood threatens the existence of the entire population.