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In Libya's Devastated Derna, Families Still Search for the Missing

A man dumps mud collected while cleaning his house, which was affected by fatal floods, in Derna, Libya, September 28, 2023. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori
A man dumps mud collected while cleaning his house, which was affected by fatal floods, in Derna, Libya, September 28, 2023. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori
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In Libya's Devastated Derna, Families Still Search for the Missing

A man dumps mud collected while cleaning his house, which was affected by fatal floods, in Derna, Libya, September 28, 2023. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori
A man dumps mud collected while cleaning his house, which was affected by fatal floods, in Derna, Libya, September 28, 2023. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori

Since a huge flood swept away whole neighborhoods of Libya's city of Derna last month, Abdulsalam al-Kadi has been searching for his father and brother. He doesn't expect to find them alive but he wants to bury them so he has a grave to mourn over.
With friends, he has scoured mudbanks where his family's house once stood. He has asked every hospital. He has pored over many of the photographs of the 4,000 bodies recovered so far, Reuters said.
"We thought maybe the sea took them. Maybe they were in the harbor. Those were really tough days. They still are really tough days," said the 43-year-old who spent two days traveling to Derna from his new home in the United States.
Three weeks after the flashflood killed thousands of people, many survivors have yet to find their loved ones, even as Libya's rival factions squabble over who to blame for the disaster and how to rebuild the ruined city.
Many families now face the prospect that they may never find out what happened to parents, children or other relatives despite efforts to identify bodies - many buried hastily in mass graves - using photographs or DNA testing.
Kadi, who could barely recognize his hometown when he arrived, says his mother and sister still hold out hope his father and brother survived. But Kadi says he has had to come to terms with the fact that they died.
"What was difficult in the first few days was hope. People would say they saw them somewhere. For us it was as if they died again every day," he said. "It drove me crazy."
COMPLICATED RECONSTRUCTION
Derna, a coastal city in eastern Libya known as a cultural center, was built on a seasonal river that ran from a mountain range into the sea.
The city had suffered in the chaos that followed Libya's 2011 NATO-backed uprising. ISIS militants seized the city in 2015 - killing one of Kadi's two brothers - before eastern forces under commander Khalifa Haftar captured it.
The devastation now is on a different scale. Overnight, a narrow valley that ran between neat streets and buildings was turned into a wide expanse of mud, rocks and lumps of masonry.
But organizing Derna's reconstruction will be complicated, with Libya split between an internationally recognized government in Tripoli in the west and eastern regions controlled by Haftar with parallel institutions.
Aid efforts are visible on the streets, with mechanical diggers clearing debris. But residents, speaking to Reuters last week, complained that they had not received any help in repairing or rebuilding homes or businesses.
Mohamed al-Ghoeil, 49, was trying to clear mud that caked shelves of a grocery store owned by his brother.
"There is a total absence of the state to reassure citizens," he said. "We decided to lessen some of our pain by cleaning what we can to bring life back to the afflicted areas."
The government in the east, which is not internationally recognized, said on Sunday it was postponing an international reconstruction conference it had planned. The Tripoli government has also said it would hold a conference, without giving a date.
In a fractured nation, reconstruction and the coordination required could fuel another tussle for power, analysts say.
The cost of casual laborers has already shot up too high for Khaled al-Fortas, who said he could not afford the elevated wages demanded by workers to help clear his damaged home.
For Kadi, the priority remains finding his lost family members - a daunting task for him and thousands of others.
"A whole city was underwater, with people in the buildings," he said. "It is impossible to pull them out with our capabilities."

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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies.

Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp. She learned Greek. She struggled with illness and depression as her marriage collapsed. She tried to make a fresh start in Germany but eventually returned to Lesbos, the island that first embraced her. Today, she works at a restaurant, preparing Iranian dishes that locals devour, even if they struggle to pronounce the names. Her second child tells her, “‘I’m Greek.’”

“Greece is close to my culture, and I feel good here,” Namjoyan said. “I am proud of myself.”

In 2015, more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe — the majority by sea, landing in Lesbos, where the north shore is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Türkiye. The influx of men, women and children fleeing war and poverty sparked a humanitarian crisis that shook the European Union to its core. A decade later, the fallout still reverberates on the island and beyond.

For many, Greece was a place of transit. They continued on to northern and western Europe. Many who applied for asylum were granted international protection; thousands became European citizens. Countless more were rejected, languishing for years in migrant camps or living in the streets. Some returned to their home countries. Others were kicked out of the European Union.

For Namjoyan, Lesbos is a welcoming place — many islanders share a refugee ancestry, and it helps that she speaks their language. But migration policy in Greece, like much of Europe, has shifted toward deterrence in the decade since the crisis. Far fewer people are arriving illegally. Officials and politicians have maintained that strong borders are needed. Critics say enforcement has gone too far and violates fundamental EU rights and values.

“Migration is now at the top of the political agenda, which it didn’t use to be before 2015,” said Camille Le Coz Director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, noting changing EU alliances. “We are seeing a shift toward the right of the political spectrum.”

A humanitarian crisis turned into a political one

In 2015, boat after boat crowded with refugees crashed onto the doorstep of Elpiniki Laoumi, who runs a fish tavern across from a Lesbos beach. She fed them, gave them water, made meals for aid organizations.

“You would look at them and think of them as your own children," said Laoumi, whose tavern walls today are decorated with thank-you notes.

From 2015 to 2016, the peak of the migration crisis, more than 1 million people entered Europe through Greece alone. The immediate humanitarian crisis — to feed, shelter and care for so many people at once — grew into a long-term political one.

Greece was reeling from a crippling economic crisis. The influx added to anger against established political parties, fueling the rise of once-fringe populist forces.

EU nations fought over sharing responsibility for asylum seekers. The bloc’s unity cracked as some member states flatly refused to take migrants. Anti-migration voices calling for closed borders became louder.

Today, illegal migration is down across Europe While illegal migration to Greece has fluctuated, numbers are nowhere near 2015-16 figures, according to the International Organization for Migration. Smugglers adapted to heightened surveillance, shifting to more dangerous routes.

Overall, irregular EU border crossings decreased by nearly 40% last year and continue to fall, according to EU border and coast guard agency Frontex.

That hasn’t stopped politicians from focusing on — and sometimes fearmongering over — migration. This month, the Dutch government collapsed after a populist far-right lawmaker withdrew his party’s ministers over migration policy.

In Greece, the new far-right migration minister has threatened rejected asylum seekers with jail time.

A few miles from where Namjoyan now lives, in a forest of pine and olive trees, is a new EU-funded migrant center. It's one of the largest in Greece and can house up to 5,000 people.

Greek officials denied an Associated Press request to visit. Its opening is blocked, for now, by court challenges.

Some locals say the remote location seems deliberate — to keep migrants out of sight and out of mind.

“We don’t believe such massive facilities are needed here. And the location is the worst possible – deep inside a forest,” said Panagiotis Christofas, mayor of Lesbos’ capital, Mytilene. “We’re against it, and I believe that’s the prevailing sentiment in our community.”

A focus on border security

For most of Europe, migration efforts focus on border security and surveillance.

The European Commission this year greenlighted the creation of “return” hubs — a euphemism for deportation centers — for rejected asylum seekers. Italy has sent unwanted migrants to its centers in Albania, even as that faces legal challenges.

Governments have resumed building walls and boosting surveillance in ways unseen since the Cold War.

In 2015, Frontex was a small administrative office in Warsaw. Now, it's the EU's biggest agency, with 10,000 armed border guards, helicopters, drones and an annual budget of over 1 billion euros.

On other issues of migration — reception, asylum and integration, for example — EU nations are largely divided.

The legacy of Lesbos

Last year, EU nations approved a migration and asylum pact laying out common rules for the bloc's 27 countries on screening, asylum, detention and deportation of people trying to enter without authorization, among other things.

“The Lesbos crisis of 2015 was, in a way, the birth certificate of the European migration and asylum policy,” Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president and a chief pact architect, told AP.

He said that after years of fruitless negotiations, he's proud of the landmark compromise.

“We didn’t have a system,” Schinas said. “Europe’s gates had been crashed."

The deal, endorsed by the United Nations refugee agency, takes effect next year. Critics say it made concessions to hardliners. Human rights organizations say it will increase detention and erode the right to seek asylum.

Some organizations also criticize the “externalization” of EU border management — agreements with countries across the Mediterranean to aggressively patrol their coasts and hold migrants back in exchange for financial assistance.

The deals have expanded, from Türkiye to the Middle East and across Africa. Human rights groups say autocratic governments are pocketing billions and often subject the displaced to appalling conditions.

Lesbos still sees some migrants arrive Lesbos' 80,000 residents look back at the 2015 crisis with mixed feelings.

Fisherman Stratos Valamios saved some children. Others drowned just beyond his reach, their bodies still warm as he carried them to shore.

“What’s changed from back then to now, 10 years on? Nothing,” he said. “What I feel is anger — that such things can happen, that babies can drown.”

Those who died crossing to Lesbos are buried in two cemeteries, their graves marked as “unknown.”

Tiny shoes and empty juice boxes with faded Turkish labels can still be found on the northern coast. So can black doughnut-shaped inner tubes, given by smugglers as crude life preservers for children. At Moria, a refugee camp destroyed by fire in 2020, children’s drawings remain on gutted building walls.

Migrants still arrive, and sometimes die, on these shores. Lesbos began to adapt to a quieter, more measured flow of newcomers.

Efi Latsoudi, who runs a network helping migrants learn Greek and find jobs, hopes Lesbos’ tradition of helping outsiders in need will outlast national policies.

“The way things are developing, it’s not friendly for newcomers to integrate into Greek society,” Latsoudi said. "We need to do something. ... I believe there is hope.”