A response to the tragedy that struck the country earlier this month. Libya’s Attorney General ordered the preventive detention of eight Libyan officials as part of an investigation into the failure of two dams that caused the deadly Derna floods on September 10, his office announced Monday.
tragic result
The eight people, who hold or have held senior positions in the department of water resources or dam management in Libya, are suspected of, among other things, “mismanagement” and “negligence,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. press. .
The mayor of Derna Abdulmonem al-Ghaithi, dismissed along with the rest of the municipal council after the tragedy, is also among those affected by the arrest.
Storm Daniel hit eastern Libya on the night of September 10-11, particularly Derna, a city of 100,000 on the shores of the Mediterranean, causing two dams to break upstream and triggering a tsunami-sized flood that swept across eastern Libya. He took everything in his path. .
According to the latest provisional official report, the floods have left at least 3,868 dead, while thousands of people are still missing.
Caution in 2022
On September 18, hundreds of residents of Derna demonstrated to demand accountability from the authorities in the east of the country, whom they consider responsible for the disaster.
Libyan Attorney General al-Seddik al-Sour announced on September 15 that he had opened an investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy. According to him, the dam management in Libya had reported cracks in both structures in 1998, but nothing had been done to remedy them.
The investigation focused in particular on a contract concluded between the Libyan Water Department and a Turkish company for the maintenance of the two dams and the payment to the latter of “disproportionate sums” in 2014, and this “despite having violated the commitments stipulated in the contract”, according to a press release from the Prosecutor’s Office.
In a November 2022 study, Libyan engineer and academic Abdel-Wanis Ashour warned of a “catastrophe” threatening Derna if authorities did not maintain the two dams.
But this warning has had no effect although Libya, which has the most abundant oil reserves in Africa, does not lack resources.
Source: BFM TV
