Twelve Libyan officials were convicted and sentenced on Sunday for their roles in a disaster that killed thousands of people and wrecked a huge swath of eastern Libya, the country’s top prosecutor said. But the verdict left untouched Libya’s entrenched political class, which many Libyans blame for a decade of political stagnation, corruption, violence and chaos that, directly or indirectly, probably contributed to the catastrophe, in which two dams collapsed. While the official death toll stands at 4,352, according to the United Nations, more than 8,000 people remain missing, many of their bodies believed to have been swept out to sea. The flood destroyed much of Derna and the surrounding areas and displaced nearly 45,000 people. All in all, the disaster affected about 1.5 million people, 22 percent of Libya’s population, a January report by the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations found.

Source: Libya Today July 28, 2024 21:31 UTC