8 officials jailed as part of investigation into deadly dam collapse in Libya

Maxar satellite imagery of the upper damn on the Wadi Darna, before the catastrophic flooding that struck the Libyan coastal city of Derna. Please use: Satellite [2023 Maxar Technologies]

Libya’s Prosecutor-General, on Monday, ordered the arrest of eight officials as part of his inquiry into the recent flood disaster which killed thousands, his office said.

The flash flood, which witnesses likened to a tsunami, broke through two ageing dams on 10 September, after a hurricane-strength storm lashed the area around Derna, a port city in Libya‘s east.

According to the report, the officials are suspected of “bad management” and negligence, a statement from the Prosecutor-General’s office said.

On Saturday, the official death toll passed 3,800, and international aid groups have said 10,000 or more people may be missing.

Derna Mayor, Abdel-Moneim Al-Ghaithi, who was sacked after the disaster, was also questioned, the statement said.

READ: UN warns 2 other dams in Libya may burst

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.