The fatalities in Libya through the passage of the storm Danielcould reach 20,000 people, as estimated by hospital sources. A brutal number, just like the images that come to us from there, with the sea spitting out the dead. The deceased reach the shores and little by little are being rescued by the emergency services.

The images also show how cars They take corpses to mass graves in the Maghreb country. There they bury the dead in a hurry, night and day, to avoid epidemics. Meanwhile, they are still finding bodies buried in the mud. The heartbreak, pain, rage and despair that death causes are in the image of a father who He found his son’s body after the floods. That father asks the rescuers to let him pick him up and take him to bury him with his hands.

The death toll in Libya now same is 6,872 But many more are expected since there are more than 10,000 missing. Libyan medical sources estimate that there may be as many as 20,000 dead. The fatalities are not only found in the streets because the sea has begun to return dozens of corpses to the shore.

The sea constantly dumps bodies on the coasts of eastern Libya and rescue teams recover them one by one. The unbearable death toll leaves a terrible image. Hundreds of corpses wrapped in blankets, piled up and piled up, and streets that become makeshift morgues. Many bodies end up in these mass graves in a city devastated by the heavy rains caused by the storm. Meanwhile, thousands of people are without a roof under which to shelter.

The testimonies of the survivors are desolatewho explain that “the entire city has been annihilated” and that there are “still victims under the rubble.” A man says that 30 of his neighbors, all from the same family, have disappeared because the worst thing caught them sleeping and that they couldn’t do anything.

A tragedy in a failed state

The health threat due to a possible epidemic that looms over Libya after this disaster, the desperate pleas for help and what it is costing to access the affected areas bring to the fore the reality of a country that is precarious. JesĆŗs A. NĆŗƱez Villaverde, Co-director of the Institute for Studies on Conflicts and Humanitarian Action (IECAH), explained that the Maghreb country is “a failed state in every sense”.

Twelve years since the dictator Muammar Gaddafi fell and three intricate wars later -against the dictatorship, against ISIS and for power, it is still alive-, Libya is a literally fractured country, precipitated by an abyss of chaos and poverty. Without functional institutions or public services, although its economy has recovered thanks to oil. “There are at least two governmentsarmed forces, which show an enormous inability to be able to attend to even the basic needs of daily life,” explains NĆŗƱez Villaverde.

Let’s see it on the map, simplifying: on the one hand, the Government of Western Libya, the internationally recognized one. Then, that of the east – with which the tragedy has occurred, precisely -, where the weight is carried by a warlord. Apart from that, the militias and tribes of the south. This complicates not only responding to the emergency, but also helping reconstruction, even if the international community wants to get involved. “When you try to give some kind of help, the interlocutor is not even clear,” says the expert.