NATO imperialism and the Libya flood catastrophe

More than 6,000 people are confirmed dead in the flooding across eastern Libya caused by Storm Daniel, which burst two dams and destroyed large parts of the port city of Derna. Many thousands are still missing and the confirmed death toll is expected to at least double as the remains of victims the flood swept out to sea wash back ashore.

This horrific catastrophe is not only the product of severe weather, intensified by climate change. It flows from the war NATO waged against Libya in 2011, which shattered the country and plunged it into civil war. Those who launched the NATO war in Libya or applauded it as a “humanitarian” intervention, and who today are backing a NATO war against Russia in Ukraine on similar grounds, bear direct political and moral responsibility for the Derna catastrophe.

Last year, hydrologist Abdelwanees Ashoor wrote articles warning that Derna’s dams were in poor condition, and that a major flood would be “likely to cause one of the two dams to collapse.” Ashoor continued, “If a huge flood happens, the result will be catastrophic for the people of the wadi and the city.”

No repairs were done, however, because of the civil war that has raged between rival governments in eastern and western Libya since NATO destroyed Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in the 2011 war. International Crisis Group official Claudia Gazzini told France24: “In 10 years since the fall of the Gaddafi regime—in the following 10 years of wars, policy rivalry and isolation—both governments have completely neglected the infrastructure.”