Libya as a major and critical country in the Arab Maghrib is feeling the pain because of a chronic mismanagement, internal controversies, and foreign interventions. The country is important for the peace, stability and wellbeing in the Mediterranean, the Arab world and Africa. The country lived under the one-men show of Muammer Qaddafi for about 40 years and it did not fare well during the last decade following the fall of his dictatorship in 2011. Continuous infightings, coup attempts and lack of leadership keep haunting the country today following a recent huge flooding that killed more than 10 thousand people in Darna on the east shore of the Mediterranean on September 12.

The Darna Disaster is both sad and also very telling about the awful situation in the large country of oil and gas and other natural resources. The huge natural disaster hit the city of Darna but the destruction is mostly man-made because of a series of mistakes by the Haftar government that rules the East of Libya. The National Accord government does not look better or more capable of fixing the damages of the disaster. One mistake was that the Libyan officials’ not following weather forecast and taking necessary measures. Even if the Haftar administration failed, the central government could at least have warned the people.

It is reported that the municipal committee gathered a day before the rainstorm and decided to evacuate the city by authorizing the security chief of Darna to implement the decision. However, the security chief did not implement the decision and he unilaterally ordered the fatal curfew upon citizens instead. Probably Hafter government gave the order to keep people at home against the floods willingly or unintentionally. In either case it is a crime to cause the death of so many people with intention or with negligence. The two dams that were supposed to protect the city from flooding collapsed due to the lack of proper maintenance since the 1990s and caused a huge damage.

The day after the disaster the people of Darna protested against the Haftar administration, but the injured city was shut down to the outside world. Haftar’s men strengthened the security grip against the popular grievances and allowed only selected media outlets to the disaster zone. So what is really going on in Darna today is not clear to the outside world. There are news about the Egyptian military came to help control the security situation and Haftar went Russia to meet Putin probably to obtain military or security assistance. The weakening Haftar will make him more desperate to invite foreign intervention and will make him more despotic and that will increase the level of opposition and dislike among the Libyan population.

Many countries like Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait have sent aids to Darna but the destruction is too big to be fixed in the short term. Unfortunately, we (the global public) do not know the scale of damage in the city and the exact number of deaths and missing. The early reporting of death toll and missing persons by civil society organizations has stopped by the Haftar administration. The lack of transparency obscures the real picture of destruction and hinders the persecution of those responsible for the high death toll. Without an international investigation, the death of thousands will go unpunished and without even acknowledgement.

What the West cares about Libya is the energy and migrants coming from there. Time proved that they have no interest in the wellbeing of Libya as Libyans are divided by regional, tribal and ideological concerns. The foreign big powers are also busy with the Ukraine war and care less about Libya’s wellbeing today. The current governments are both failed in the East and the West. The Prime Minister Dibaiba was already shaken by the scandals of the Mangoush meeting Isaeli Foreign Minister and the fighting between the Rada and the 444 militias. However, the elections seem also very distant due to disagreements on the nature of candidacy and implementation. Therefore, it is better to renew the legitimacy with a new national accord government with new faces under the UN mandate to prepare the country for real elections. A broader cooperation among the regional countries such as Turkey, Egypt and the GCC on Libya will also be very critical.