Tripoli [Libya] September 14: More than 3,000 people killed in devastating floods that lashed eastern Libya have been buried by the authorities, an official from one of the country's rival governments said on Wednesday, as thousands more were said to be missing.
Spokesman for the east-based Interior Ministry, Tarek Al Kharraz, said 1,100 of the victims could not be identified ad had been buried in mass graves. That came after the burial of 2,090 others on Tuesday whose identities had been officially established.
However, the official said it is difficult to give specific figures about the flood-related deaths.
"This is particularly difficult, given that locals bury their own dead without registering them," Al Kharraz told DPA.
Some of the bodies floated off in Derna, the eastern city worst affected by the floods that followed a heavy storm, the official said.
He expected the number of deaths to further rise, saying around 9,000 people have been registered as missing.
On Tuesday, al-Kharraz told DPA that the death toll from devastating floods in Derna had reached 5,200. This figure could not be independently verified.
He also said that a quarter of Derna had been destroyed or washed into the sea. Two dams collapsed during the storm.
The United Nations is mobilizing aid for survivors and working with local, national and international partners "to get urgently needed humanitarian assistance to those in the affected areas," StephaneDujarric, the spokesman for UN Secretary General AntonioGuterres, said on Tuesday.
The spokesman said that a UN team was on the ground and they were cooperating with the local authorities to assess needs and support ongoing relief efforts.
While rescue workers and relatives search for survivors, about 10,000 people were reported missing at last count, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The figure could not be independently verified.
"At this time, our thoughts are with the thousands of people being affected there in their communities, we stand in solidarity with all people in Libya during this difficult time," Dujarric said in New York.
The flooding has left more than 30,000 people homeless, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), particularly in Derna.
Thousands more have lost their homes in cities in the east of the country.
The UN-recognized government in the Libyan capital Tripoli has pledged millions in aid for areas ravaged by the storm, although it does not control the region in the east of the country.
Two rival governments are vying for power in Libya, which has been plagued by unrest in recent years. One is based in the east and the other is based in Tripoli, in the west. So far, diplomatic efforts to peacefully resolve the ongoing civil war have failed.The disaster can also be linked to Libya's political turmoil, according to a political scientist.
"It is not simply a natural disaster, but an event that is very closely linked to the political situation in Libya," Wolfram Lacher, an expert on Libya at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), told German public broadcaster ZDF.
The massive destruction comes after very little has been invested in infrastructure.
Libya has been in chaos since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Gaddafi in 2011. Countless militias are still fighting for power and influence in the oil-rich country. The conflict is further fuelled by foreign states.
Lacher said Gaddafi punished Derna in the 1990s when insurgents took up arms. But in the years after Gaddafi's fall "nothing at all was invested in infrastructure." Some money has flowed to the region in recent years, but it went into the pockets of militia leaders and war profiteers, he said.
Source: Qatar Tribune