A century ago, the coastal city of Derna was well known for picture-perfect beaches, palm trees and whitewashed villas mainly inhabited by Libya's Italian colonial occupiers. Today, in the aftermath of Storm Daniel, which brought 400mm of rain to the region, overwhelming two dams and sweeping millions of tons of water across the city, much of Derna has been flooded. Entire suburbs are reported to have been washed into the sea by the tsunami-like wave that barreled down the normally dry river Wadi Dern through the heart of the city.
with another 10,000 missing and feared dead. Countless more people—perhaps one-third of Derna's inhabitants, have been left homeless.to successive Libyan regimes. The former Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, regarded the city with distrust and deprived it of basic resources and infrastructure. On the eve of Gaddafi's overthrow by Nato-backed forces in 2011, the Libyan government described Derna as a"hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism".
In the vacuum left by Gaddafi's overthrow and the civil war that followed, Derna became a center for jihadis who pledged their allegiance to Islamic State in 2014. From 2015 to 2018 theAs a result, the city has suffered from decades of neglect and much of its infrastructure dates back to Italian occupation of the country in the early 20th century. The city has
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