Whole Families Drown in Libyan City’s Flood 

People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)
People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)
TT
20

Whole Families Drown in Libyan City’s Flood 

People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)
People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)

The wall of water several stories high smashed into apartment buildings, drowning entire families in minutes.

One man, Fadellalah, believes 13 members of his extended family died. He’s yet to hear about the fate of another 20, several days after two dams burst above the Libyan coastal city of Derna, unleashing epic floods that wiped out neighborhoods and sent some of the dead into sea.

Thousands of others like him are frantically trying to find out who survived the rain-swollen rampage.

As a powerful storm bore down on his hometown, Fadellalah, an information technology worker in Libya’s capital of Tripoli, called his family Sunday to urge them to move to higher ground.

“No one expected this,” said Fadelallah, who asked that his surname not be used because he fears reprisal from government officials and armed groups who could view his story as criticism of their efforts.

“Some of them didn’t have cars. They didn’t have a way to get out,” he said Wednesday of his family.

Torrential rainwater that gushed down steep mountainsides and into the city killed thousands. Those who survived recount nightmarish scenes, with bodies piling up quicker than authorities can count them.

Mediterranean storm Daniel caused deadly flooding in many towns of eastern Libya. But Derna, renowned for its white villas and palm trees, was the worst-hit. The city had no evacuation plans, and residents said the only warning was the explosive sound of the dams rupturing.

Location proved the difference between life and death.

Fadelallah said all 13 deceased members of his family lived in a neighborhood near the river valley. Their bodies were recovered and buried by the Red Crescent, their names inked on a list of the deceased sent to him by the medical group.

Mohammed Derna, a teacher and 34-year-old father of two, said he and his family and neighbors rushed upstairs. Outside he saw people, including women and young children, just being carried away. They spent Sunday night on the roof of their apartment block before managing to get out Monday morning.

“They were screaming, help, help,” he said over the phone from a field hospital in Derna. “It was like a Hollywood horror movie.”

Emad al-Falah, an aid worker from Benghazi who arrived in the city on Wednesday, said search and rescue teams have been combing apartment buildings for bodies and retrieving corpses turned back by the sea. A litany of social media videos and images show similar distressing scenes.

“It’s a complete disaster. Bodies are everywhere, inside houses, in the streets, at sea. Wherever you go, you find dead men, women, and children,” al-Falah said.

The startling devastation has underscored Libya’s vulnerability. The oil-rich country has been divided between rival administrations, each backed by competing armed militias, for almost a decade. It has been rocked by conflict since a NATO-backed an uprising toppled longtime ruler Moammar al-Gaddafi in 2011.

Both governments have banded together to help those affected. But progress has been slow. Key bridges, roads and other infrastructure are gone. Derna, which had a population of 90,000, largely was cut off from the world before the first aid convoys arrived late Tuesday.

As of Wednesday, at least 30,000 people were displaced by the flooding in Derna, the UN’s International Organization for Migration said. Many fled to nearby cities and towns less impacted by the storm.

One of them is Ahlam Yassin, a 30-year-old housewife, who left for the eastern city of Tobruk.

“Everything has gone,” said Yassin, who waded barefoot with her family through knee-deep water to leave her neighborhood. “The city itself has gone.”

Mahmoud al-Baseer's cousins lived lived less than kilometer -- roughly 0.6 miles -- from one of the dams. They survived, he said, by quickly escaping to the upper floors of their three-story apartment block and were lucky that the structure held its ground.

Al-Baseer, who lives in the United Kingdom, initially feared they had died. Until he reached them Tuesday evening, he struggled to watch the destruction from afar.

“I could not carry on watching those social media videos,” he said.

Fadelallah said his parents have made it to Benghazi, hoping to reunite with relatives from Derna. And he said he hopes to return soon to give his deceased relatives a proper Islamic funeral.



What Makes Greenland a Strategic Prize at a Time of Rising Tensions? And Why Now? 

A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 
A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 
TT
20

What Makes Greenland a Strategic Prize at a Time of Rising Tensions? And Why Now? 

A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 
A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 

When US President Donald Trump first suggested buying Greenland in 2019, people thought it was just a joke. No one is laughing now.

Trump’s interest in Greenland, restated vigorously soon after he returned to the White House in January, comes as part of an aggressively “America First” foreign policy platform that includes demands for Ukraine to hand over mineral rights in exchange for continued military aid, threats to take control of the Panama Canal, and suggestions that Canada should become the 51st US state.

Why Greenland? Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and Trump wants to make sure that the US controls this mineral-rich country that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

Who does Greenland belong to? Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a long-time US ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Denmark has also recognized Greenland’s right to independence at a time of its choosing.

Amid concerns about foreign interference and demands that Greenlanders must control their own destiny, the island’s prime minister called an early parliamentary election for Tuesday.

The world’s largest island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.

Why are other countries interested in Greenland? Climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting the competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.

“Let us be clear: we are soon entering the Arctic Century, and its most defining feature will be Greenland’s meteoric rise, sustained prominence and ubiquitous influence,” said Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative.

“Greenland — located on the crossroads between North America, Europe and Asia, and with enormous resource potential — will only become more strategically important, with all powers great and small seeking to pay court to it. One is quite keen to go a step further and buy it.”

The following are some of the factors that are driving US interest in Greenland.

Arctic competition

Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change, the hunt for scarce resources and increasing international tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are once again driving competition in the region.

Strategic importance

Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the US occupied Greenland to ensure that it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.

The US has retained bases in Greenland since the war, and the Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Force Base, supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the US and NATO. Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic.

Natural resources

Greenland has large deposits of so-called rare earth minerals that are needed to make everything from computers and smartphones to the batteries, solar and wind technologies that will power the transition away from fossil fuels. The US Geological Survey has also identified potential offshore deposits of oil and natural gas.

Greenlanders are keen to develop the resources, but they have enacted strict rules to protect the environment. There are also questions about the feasibility of extracting Greenland’s mineral wealth because of the region’s harsh climate.

Climate change

Greenland’s retreating ice cap is exposing the country’s mineral wealth and melting sea ice is opening up the once-mythical Northwest Passage through the Arctic.

Greenland sits strategically along two potential routes through the Arctic, which would reduce shipping times between the North Atlantic and Pacific and bypass the bottlenecks of the Suez and Panama canals. While the routes aren’t likely to be commercially viable for many years, they are attracting attention.

Chinese interest

In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.

Then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” A Chinese-backed rare earth mining project in Greenland stalled after the local government banned uranium mining in 2021.

Independence

The legislation that extended self-government to Greenland in 2009 also recognized the country’s right to independence under international law. Opinion polls show a majority of Greenlanders favor independence, though they differ on exactly when that should occur. The potential for independence raises questions about outside interference in Greenland that could threaten US interests in the country.