Thousands of civilians lost their lives when Storm Daniel hit north-eastern Libya on September 10. The natural disaster also displaced tens of thousands of people, and fundamentally disrupted critical services in Libya, including the education system, the protection of heritage sites and water management.
Libya requested UNESCO's assistance in helping rebuild the affected areas, as part of its mandate for education, culture and science. The Organization immediately responded favorably to this request, preparing to send a delegation of experts, in close cooperation with the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the entire UN system.
The delegation will arrive in Tripoli today. On Tuesday and Wednesday, it will meet the Ministers of Education, Culture, Higher Education and Research, in order to identify their needs, and decide which measures to implement most urgently.
The UNESCO delegation is then scheduled to visit the site of Cyrene, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982 and on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2016. There, it will carry out an initial survey of the flood damage and the structures in need of rapid reinforcement.
The experts will also inspect other heritage sites in Cyrenaica: The Ancient City of Ptolemais and The Haua Fteah Cave, both of which are on the national World Heritage Tentative List, as well as the ancient city of Apollonia.
Lastly, the UNESCO delegation will visit Derna, one of the towns hit hardest by the disaster, to assess the damage to educational and heritage buildings. It will help to plan the rehabilitation and reconstruction work, and develop the emergency measures to be deployed in the interim phase - in particular those needed to ensure educational continuity and the safety of heritage buildings and collections.
