Hundreds of protesters in Libya have burnt down the mayor’s house in the city of Derna, demanding answers for last week’s deadly flood.
They gathered inside the city’s renowned Sahaba Mosque, with many calling for the expulsion of senior leaders in Libya’s eastern admi
Derna’s whole city council has now been dismissed.
In a media crackdown, internet and phone service have also been suspended, and journalists have been told to leave.
Officially, more than 10,000 people are unaccounted for after two old, crumbling dams broke, flooding the city.
The number of deaths reported has been significantly fluctuated, but according to the UN, there have been close to 4,000 confirmed deaths.
The UN now says one of its teams has been refused permission to enter Derna.
The home of Derna’s mayor, Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi, has become a focal point for people’s anger.
Residents say they were not sufficiently warned by officials, who they believe must have known a huge amount of rainfall was coming.
They say they were also given a stay-at-home warning rather than being told to evacuate, although officials deny this.
Since the ousting of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has been riven by power struggles and currently has two governments – a UN-recognised one based in Tripoli, and another in the country’s east backed by warlord Gen Khalifa Haftar.
He has been calling the flooding a natural disaster but many Libyans disagree, saying the eastern government had neglected the dams despite prior warnings about their fragile condition.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution organization claimed Libya’s conflict and poor dam maintenance had turned extreme weather into a humanitarian crisis, but that human-induced global warming had caused up to 50% more rain to fall in eastern Libya.
The day after the protests, an official in the administration of eastern Libya declared that all media had been asked to leave Derna, accusing them of impeding the operation of rescue crews.
