Authorities in flood-ravaged eastern Libya appeared to try to silence dissent last week by arresting protesters and activists demanding accountability for what they said was a botched official response to the disaster.
Torrential rains that burst two dams triggered a flood on September 11 that swept large parts of the coastal city of Derna and surrounding areas into the Mediterranean, killing thousands.
According to witnesses and a relative, at least three people were arrested for either publicly criticizing the government’s response or taking part in a protest rally in Derna on Monday. Aid workers and journalists also say the authoritarian government that controls the eastern half of divided Libya, which includes Derna, has restricted access to the city for some.
Internet and cell phone services in the city were also shut down on Tuesday and Wednesday, raising questions about whether they were intentionally shut down by operators.
“The level of anger among people is very high and communication has been cut off because they are afraid of people expressing their anger publicly,” said Islam Azouz, a volunteer from Derna, who attended on Monday Protest attended by hundreds of people demanding that those responsible for the disaster be held accountable.
“People have lost their homes and their city. Of course they are angry about the corruption and neglect that led to this disaster,” he added.
But officials in eastern Libya said damage or sabotage was to blame for the internet outages.
After Monday’s protests, some reporters from Arabic-language channels spread across the Middle East said they were forced out of Derna, while other journalists covering the rescue and relief operations said they were prevented from moving freely inside to move out of town or re-enter it once they had left.
Foreign rescue teams and other aid groups appeared to be working as usual. But Mr. Azouz said on Wednesday that some civilian volunteer groups from across Libya’s east-west divide had been ordered to leave the country.
Two rival governments shared control of the chaos-plagued country in the years following the 2011 Arab Spring uprising and resulting civil war.
A United Nations aid convoy traveling from Benghazi, the de facto capital of eastern Libya, was also turned away by authorities in Derna on Wednesday without explanation, said Georgette Gagnon, the U.N. Aid Coordination Agency’s humanitarian coordinator in Libya. However, other UN relief work in Derna continued unhindered, she added.
“There has been no comprehensive effort to restrict U.N. movements or restrict access to humanitarian supplies,” Ms. Gagnon said.
The widespread confusion over access to Derna was due in large part to the disorganized, divided and highly politicized state of Libya’s institutions and media. Reliable information about the death toll and other basic information was difficult to obtain even before the communications blackout.
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that about 4,000 deaths had been recorded in hospitals. But eastern government officials said the death toll was far higher. Some estimate that up to 11,000 people died and thousands more were missing.
Mohamed Eljarh, a former Libya analyst and adviser who began work on Tuesday as an official spokesman for the Benghazi-based eastern government’s emergency relief committee, said on Wednesday that authorities were trying to streamline the chaotic relief effort as aid traffic clogged roads and crowded what was left of Derna.
But officials in the east still lacked clear protocols for authorizing entry into Derna, he added, saying he did not know why the U.N. convoy was blocked.
The eastern government, long controlled by military strongman Khalifa Hifter and his self-proclaimed Libyan National Army, often justifies its actions by saying it is rooting out Islamist extremists. This time it’s a little different.
Mr. Eljarh said eastern authorities were concerned that anti-Hifter elements were infiltrating relief efforts to foment violence and foment local grievances against the territory’s leaders, and that Islamist media were politicizing the tragedy by offering unfounded criticism of Mr Hifter spread.
But to residents angry over everything they had lost in the floods, it appeared as if Benghazi-based authorities were returning to the same repressive security tactics they often use to contain perceived threats to their power.
Hundreds of Derna residents gathered at a city mosque on Monday evening to protest the government’s response to the storm. They called for an international investigation into those responsible for maintaining the burst dams and the removal of the speaker of Libya’s eastern parliament, which is part of the territorial administration.
They burned down the house of the mayor of Derna, a nephew of the Benghazi government-appointed speaker, and distributed a list of demands. The speaker, Aguila Saleh, is another influential Eastern politician who generally agrees with Mr. Hifter.
Shortly after the demonstration, all communications were cut off in Derna, leaving residents, aid workers and others unable to call, text or use mobile devices from early Tuesday morning until Wednesday evening, when people there said the internet had been restored to use internet.
Libya’s state-owned telecommunications company told local media after communications were disrupted that the outage was caused either by damage to fiber optic cables that may have occurred during ongoing recovery operations or by sabotage.
On Tuesday evening, the eastern government committee coordinating the emergency response announced that the damage had been 70 percent repaired. This contrasted with repair efforts immediately after the floods, when some communications links were restored within hours.
Internal security forces arrested at least two protesters during the demonstration, including one of the organizers, according to Mr. Azouz, who was present, and two other protesters who said they witnessed the arrests.
A Derna journalist, Jawhar Ali, said his brother, a Derna resident who had called on television to hold those responsible to account and criticize the management of aid, was arrested on Saturday.
The two protesters were later released, but Mr. Ali’s brother remained in custody, Mr. Ali said.
Although Mr. Eljarh, the spokesman, said, “It was very clear that the people of Derna had legitimate concerns and grievances,” he also said that anti-hifter factions had used the protest to incite violence, including Burning of the mayor’s house.
In Derna, aid teams and volunteers from across Libya continued to retrieve bodies from the rubble and try to identify them before burying them in mass graves.
Aid organizations warned that diseases could spread quickly through contaminated water. The Libyan National Center for Disease Control has already reported 150 cases of poisoning. Ms Gagnon said several agencies were working with authorities to repair the water supply.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.