Fears of New Disaster after Heavy Rain Hits Eastern Libya

Floods that hit the city of Shahat, eastern Libya (Media Office of the Ambulance and Emergency Service)
Floods that hit the city of Shahat, eastern Libya (Media Office of the Ambulance and Emergency Service)
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Fears of New Disaster after Heavy Rain Hits Eastern Libya

Floods that hit the city of Shahat, eastern Libya (Media Office of the Ambulance and Emergency Service)
Floods that hit the city of Shahat, eastern Libya (Media Office of the Ambulance and Emergency Service)

Heavy rains hit several cities in eastern Libya, flooding streets and homes, and prompting some municipalities to declare a state of emergency.

The bad weather also urged head of Libya's parliament-appointed government, Osama Hammad, to instruct relevant bodies to take necessary measures to protect and rescue stranded citizens.

Libya has witnessed two days of heavy rainfall and flooding in Al Bayda city, Sousse and Shahat.

Citizens in those cities fear a disaster scenario similar to Derna, where flooding caused by hurricane-strength Storm Daniel tore through eastern Libya, leaving at least 4,200 people dead and thousands more missing last September.

On Sunday, the Ambulance and Emergency Service said its emergency teams had evacuated some families stranded by the floods.

The Service then declared a state of emergency in Shahat due to the heavy rains. It also deployed its teams throughout the city to help citizens in the event of any emergency.

In Al Bayda, the municipal council addressed the commander-in-chief of the Libyan National Army, Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and the government of Hammad, saying the city has been “submerged by floods” since Saturday, forcing the relevant authorities to evacuate homes.

The municipal council then urged concerned authorities to find quick and effective solutions to overcome this disaster, and to restore normal life in the city.

Hammad had earlier gave orders for action following heavy rainfall and flooding in Al Bayda city in the Green Mountain region. He also directed both the Interior and Local Governance ministries to raise preparedness levels to the maximum and coordinate with relevant government bodies to alleviate the suffering of citizens in the Green Mountain region.



UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)

More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad on Dec. 8, including 800,000 people displaced inside the country and 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of the regime in Syria, we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.

“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.

Last January, the UN's high commissioner for refugees urged the international community to back Syria's reconstruction efforts to facilitate the return of millions of refugees.

“Lift the sanctions, open up space for reconstruction. If we don't do it now at the beginning of the transition, we waste a lot of time,” Grandi told a press conference in Ankara, after returning from a trip in Lebanon and Syria.

At a meeting in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Türkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”

The meeting's final statement also pledged support for Syria's new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods in Homs, where rebels first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on protests in 2011, only to find them in ruins.

In Homs, the Syrian military had besieged and bombarded opposition areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin was killed in a bombing in 2012.

“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“We removed the rubble, laid a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

“Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”

Duaa’s husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.