San Francisco Frontiers - Libya presses on rebuilding flood-ravaged Derna but trauma lingers

New roads and bridges, thousands of new homes, and a hospital have risen from the rubble since a storm swept the coastal city in 2023, leaving thousands missing and over 40,000 homeless.

Memories from that September disaster remain vivid: apartment blocks ripped open, bodies buried beneath debris, and cars swept into the sea.

But reconstruction provides a glimmer of hope here, where some residents said it helps them cope with the tragedy they lived through.

Asmaa Algzhiri, who lives abroad but comes back to her native city often, said the losses went beyond the death of her aunt and nephews: "Derna is a very close-knit city where everyone is connected. Even your neighbours are family."

She said she was astonished by what has been built in less than three years: "new hospitals, schools, mosques and a stadium". AFP journalists saw multiple newly completed constructions.

But the grief in Derna remains profound.

Like many, Algzhiri has yet to fully mourn the loss of her relatives whose bodies were never found. Authorities, she said, should focus "more on mental health" now.

"It's really important because even if people are working and carrying on with daily life, I know everyone is still traumatised," said the 40-year-old woman.

Ashraf Al-Targui, a 30-year-old construction supervisor, who lost his uncle's family in the floods, said he would have "preferred to lose my house rather than loved ones".

Still, he added, the disaster was "both a tragedy and a gift from God that gave us a new city".

The new parks and playgrounds now scattered across the city "are really important for people's mental health".

Adel Bokhsam, a reconstruction official with whom AFP visited construction sites, said a host of projects are currently underway, which he said were about 80 percent completed.

They included 3,500 apartments for displaced families, nine bridges -- four crossing the riverbed, with some having been turned into a public promenade -- new roads, a desalination plant, new schools, a university and a 600-bed hospital.

- 'New beginning' -

Egyptian Abdulhamid Shahata, who moved to Libya in 2014, said reconstruction projects provided many workers with "incredible opportunities".

"There are jobs everywhere," said the 31-year-old father of four. "Only the lazy and the crazy can't find work."

Long known as a centre of Islamic scholarship and city wary of Muammar Gaddafi's authoritarian rule, Derna became a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and later the Islamic State group after the 2011 uprising.

In 2018, the city was seized by forces loyal to military strongman Khalifa Haftar, whose family now controls much of Libya's east and south -- and the majority of oil fields -- with one of his sons, Belgacem, spearheading Derna's reconstruction efforts.

The oil-rich country remains divided between a UN-recognised government based in its capital, Tripoli, and the eastern administration in Benghazi backed by the Haftars.

The 2023 storm exposed years of neglect, particularly the deteriorating dams built in the 1970s.

Public anger erupted after the disaster, with residents accusing local authorities of corruption and some even setting fire to the home of the then-mayor, nephew of the eastern administration's parliament speaker Aguila Salah, a Haftar ally.

It also came as a wake-up call for the Haftars to turn the city into a showcase reconstruction project.

They established a reconstruction fund in 2024 with a budget of some $2 billion to rebuild Derna.

Today, Derna is a changed city, but the memory of the 2023 tragedy remains bitter.

Bokhsam, the local reconstruction official, said he lost more than 15 family members: his sister, her husband, and their four children, along with other relatives.

"No one would have thought we could live here again," said the architectural engineer.

But helping rebuild his city has offered what Bokhsam called "a new beginning".

"When I'm working, I tell myself that those souls did not die in vain."

B.Ramirez--SFF