When Raed Qazmouz and his workforce of Palestinian first responders lastly reached Derna final week, he was shocked by the sheer scale of catastrophe in Libya’s flooded Mediterranean metropolis.
The 41-year-old lieutenant colonel is the top of the Palestinian Civil Defence rescue workforce, whose 35 members had accomplished their week-long mission in Derna on Thursday and had been on their manner again to the occupied West Financial institution.
“The devastation is past all creativeness,” he mentioned, describing buildings uprooted from their foundations and swept out to sea.
This was not Qazmouz’s first mission, as he led first response missions to Pakistan after main floods in 2022, and to Turkey after the earthquakes in February. However the shock felt in Derna by him and his workforce – which included 22 water search-and-rescue specialists – was palpable.
“The individuals right here informed us Derna was probably the most stunning metropolis in Libya,” he mentioned.
“At this time, you stroll by it and see nothing however mud, silt, and demolished homes. The scent of corpses is in every single place, the scent of loss of life from the ocean, the place 1000’s of decomposed corpses have been swept away.”
‘We reply the decision’
{That a} Palestinian mission had arrived to assist disaster-stricken Libyans got here as a shock to many, and this workforce of first responders needed to struggle more durable than others to even be capable to get out of the occupied West Financial institution and to a global airport in Jordan.
But they persevered, Qazmouz mentioned, due to a perception in worldwide humanitarian ideas and the need of offering humanitarian help to these in want, no matter gender, faith, or race.
“After we hear a name for assist from anybody, we reply the decision, regardless of the struggling we expertise as Palestinians residing below Israeli occupation,” he mentioned.
Derna and different jap Libyan cities had been struck by Storm Daniel on September 10. The heavy rains triggered the collapse of two neglected dams, leading to a wall of an estimated 30 million cubic metres (8 billion gallons) of water bombing by Derna, destroying entire neighbourhoods.
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A spokesman for the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross mentioned fatalities are within the 1000’s, however didn’t give a particular toll because the tally remains to be unclear. The World Well being Group says a complete of three,958 deaths have been registered.
The UN Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says not less than 9,000 persons are nonetheless lacking. Estimates are that tens of 1000’s of the town’s 100,000 individuals have been displaced.
“An estimated 43,059 people have been displaced by the floods in northeastern Libya,” the Worldwide Group for Migration mentioned on Thursday, including {that a} “lack of water provide is reportedly driving many displaced out of Derna”.
The Palestinian Civil Defence mission has labored in 56 nations throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.
Bringing tonnes of assist to Libya
The Palestinian Civil Defence bought greater than 22 tonnes of meals and humanitarian assist and introduced it to the Libyan authorities, Imad al-Zuhairi, assistant minister of overseas affairs and director normal of the Palestinian Worldwide Cooperation Company, who was with the mission, informed Al Jazeera.
“[D]espite the occupation, Palestine is able to taking part in its function on the worldwide stage,” he mentioned. “Our workforce’s mission stems from us with the ability to relate carefully to the struggling of others, on condition that we stay below Israeli occupation and its insurance policies.”
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Al-Zuhairi mentioned their journey was hindered by the shortage of direct flights and the workforce was delayed by a number of days on condition that their total journey time was greater than 30 hours. However they had been glad to have made it in the long run.
“If we had an airport or port, we may have been there in a number of hours,” he mentioned, including that different worldwide groups had been in a position to go on to their airports with all their tools and provides.
Palestinians within the occupied West Financial institution are banned by Israel from utilizing any of its airports and should cross the Israeli-controlled land border with Jordan, drive to the capital Amman, and fly out of the Queen Alia Worldwide Airport.
‘Entire households, wiped from civil registry’
Upon their arrival, the workforce arrange two shifts to work from 7am to 7pm. “We wished to work in a single day, however search-and-rescue operations stopped fully at evening,” al-Zuhairi mentioned.
He described tragic scenes of individuals looking for victims, no matter whether or not they had been alive or lifeless, including that he had by no means seen such scenes of destruction, even in Turkey within the aftermath of February’s earthquakes.
“I noticed a very destroyed metropolis,” he mentioned. “I noticed automobiles on the roofs of buildings, our bodies on the bottom, and our bodies popping out of the ocean.”
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Qazmouz mentioned the town felt eerie, with total households lifeless, “erased from the civil registry”.
“Strolling round Derna, you see loss of life in every single place,” he mentioned. “We discovered victims in neighbourhoods they didn’t stay in, swept up by the floods, buried underground or swept out to sea.”
Some our bodies had been within the water so lengthy, Qazmouz went on to say, it was troublesome to determine the victims.
“We gave every part we may,” he mentioned. “Hopefully, we had been a part of assuaging some results of this catastrophe on the bothered Libyan individuals.”