On the night of September 10, after Storm Daniel brought heavy rains to the region, two dams near the eastern Libyan city of Derna collapsed. 30 million cubic meters of water flooded entire neighborhoods, causing severe infrastructural damage, and killed more than 11,000 people. A week after the storm, there were still over 10,000 others missing, and fourteen rescue teams active in the city, including ten foreign teams.
In this debate, Sada publishes two articles that contextualize the tragedy in Derna and assess what comes next for the war-torn country. Engy Said argues that civil conflict in Libya over the past decade has made the country extremely vulnerable to climate change; in particular, she shows how the dam collapse in Derna was facilitated by a multi-year siege that destroyed infrastructure throughout the city. Looking ahead, Basem Aly suggests that the recently launched investigation into the dam collapse, led by Libya’s General Prosecutor, will likely be marred by political meddling to ensure that high-level officials get off scot-free.
Derna's Tragedy: The Culmination of Years of Conflict
While geopolitics have dominated headlines about Libya, the recent disaster in Derna highlights the country’s increased vulnerability to climate change after a decade of war.
Engy Said
Derna's ordeal is another tragic chapter in the protracted conflict that has plagued Libya since 2011 and has left the country divided between two rival authorities, each vying for power and control over resources. The war has eroded state institutions, weakened the rule of law, and, most significantly, caused extensive suffering for the Libyan people. It has also wreaked havoc on the country’s economy: while hydrocarbons had traditionally constituted over 70 percent of the GDP and 90 percent of government revenue, the country's oil production and exports have been impacted by conflict interruptions. Private sector companies, a crucial partner for reconstruction and development, have suffered from forced closures or physical damage to business facilities. By the end of 2020, the cumulative cost of this enduring conflict had surpassed $576 billion. Resources that could have been channeled into development, healthcare, education, and infrastructure improvements were diverted to military expenditures. Political fragmentation further diminished investments in the country's roads and public services, while regulatory oversight of private construction remained minimal. This destruction has intensified the country's vulnerability to extreme weather events and significantly hampered its ability to respond to natural disasters.
While Storm Daniel affected other cities, none bore as devastating an impact as Derna. But Derna's tragedy was also a product years of armed conflict. In 2014, the Islamic State seized control of the city, igniting an extended period of hostilities between the Libyan National Army (LNA) and extremist groups that lasted until the LNA took over the city in 2019. Intense fighting and a three-year siege caused substantial causalities and left Derna struggling with mass civilian displacement and extensive damage to its infrastructure. Even though the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) set up a $335 million fund in 2021 to rehabilitate the cities of Derna and Benghazi, these funds became embroiled in political disputes, further hindering the city's recovery efforts—including the maintenance of the dams. Experts had previously issued warnings about the urgent need to maintain the dams, but they had not received proper upkeep for over two decades. Consequently, Derna's already vulnerable residents found themselves further exposed and ill-prepared to confront the catastrophic floods.
Delivering aid to the city amidst these overlapping crises has been an extraordinary challenge. The floods destroyed bridges, washed away entire neighborhoods, and rendered roads leading to the city impassable. Communication breakdowns, power outages, and local infrastructure damage have further compounded the difficulties, impeding the work of search and rescue teams and the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Although Libyan authorities have initiated an investigation into the collapse of the dams that precipitated the devastating flood, this action alone falls short. There is an urgent need for a sustainable peace—not only to prepare for the next natural disaster, but also to mend the profound scars inflicted by over a decade of turmoil. This must begin with a political settlement that reinstates a functioning central government, a prerequisite for effective governance that can address the multifaceted challenges facing the country. Without comprehensive solution to the conflict, the added strain of the humanitarian disaster in Derna is likely to lead to further instability, with the heightened risk of a return to violence.
Engy Said is a visiting fellow at Harvard University. Her research focuses on conflict and peacebuilding, institutional structures, and political economy, with a particular focus on the Middle East and North Africa.
Is Derna’s Investigation Damned from the Start?
As political interference is likely to tarnish the recently announced probe, top-level officials responsible for Libya’s man-made disaster will evade prosecution.
Basem Aly
On September 16, Libya's Tripoli-based General Prosecutor al-Sediq al-Sour announced that prosecutors will launch an investigation into the collapse of the Derna and Abu Mansour dams during Storm Daniel. The Libyan Audit Bureau believes consecutive governments failed to maintain the two dams over the past two decades, even after a 1998 government study revealed cracks and fissures in the dams’ structures. Al-Sour has vowed to file criminal charges against "whoever made mistakes or negligence,” and while the specific parameters of the investigation remain unclear, it will likely focus on the allocation of maintenance funds and target officials in previous cabinets or local officials in Derna. Moreover, by drawing investigators from across the country, Al-Sour is clearly seeking to avoid any allegations of bias and ensure transparency amidst severe political polarization in Libya.
Yet the investigation is unlikely to result in significant repercussions for top-level executive or legislative officials in eastern Libya, as the judiciary and law enforcement agencies remain under the control of powerful political actors. Al-Sour himself, who served as a former head of the Investigations Department at the Prosecutor General's Office from 2014 to 2021, was appointed to General Prosecutor as the result of an agreement between the Tripoli-based High Council of State (HCS) and the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR) in April 2021. The HoR is allied with the Government of National Stability (GNS) and the Libyan National Army (LNA), which is led by Khalifa Haftar and controls northern and eastern Libya, including Derna.
Days after the GNS dismissed all members of Derna’s municipal council on September 19, Al-Sour announced that he will initiate criminal proceedings against 16 former and current officials. These include bureaucrats in the Water Resources Authority and the Dams Management Authority, as well as Derna’s mayor. But while Al-Sour may be able to target officials in local councils and state institutions with weak connections to political elites, he will avoid taking any legal action against the GNS, HoR, or LNA to avoid a deterioration in post-conflict political and security environments. Both previous and current senior officials will thus be able to avoid prosecution for any part they played in the disaster.
Over the coming year, al-Sour’s investigation will likely become another source of political tension between the GNS and the HCS-allied Government of National Unity (GNU) that have been competing for political power since February 2022. On September 19, the HCS called for international actors to be included in the investigation— in part to force the LNA to explain why no new contractors have maintained the dams since it took control of Derna in 2018 during Libya’s civil war. But instead of ensuring accountability for the dams’ collapse, Tripoli’s insistence on international oversight is primarily intended to pressure the GNS and the LNA to make political concessions. The GNU is aware of the investigation’s limitations, including the inability of the investigators to take key anti-GNU political figures in eastern Libya to court, and, so far, the lack of any intention or indication that international actors will participate.
Residents of Derna who lost their homes, family members, or both have launched sporadic protests to demand accountability for the crisis and call for reconstruction, going so far as to burn down the mayor’s house. However, these protests are unlikely to influence the outcome of the investigation: the LNA maintains a strong grip on Derna, and although it has allowed the public to express their anger through demonstrations, it has the power to suppress them. In fact, the LNA has reportedly cut internet and telephone access and ordered journalists to leave Derna. But regardless of these measures, Al-Sour’s investigation may fail to appease angry citizens if high-level officials will emerge unscathed.
Basem Aly is a PhD candidate in political science at the Institute of Arab Research and Studies in Cairo. He is conducting doctoral research on civil war settlements across several MENA states, including Libya.
