Egyptian Village Mourns Scores of People Who Died in Derna, Libya following Storm Daniel
(AWP) - Residents of al-Sharif village in Upper Egypt’s Beni Suef governorate mourned the deaths and buried the bodies of scores of its villagers who were killed in Storm Daniel that hit the Libyan city of Derna.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) announced the death of at least 250 Egyptians in Derna, 74 of whom are from Beni Suef.
A staggering 68 victims were from al-Sharif village, and six others from the villages of Fazzara, Kambash, Bani Etman, and Suds in the Biba directorate.
The Egyptian Health Ministry ambulances carrying the victims’ bodies struggled to make their way through the village due to the large crowds that gathered at the village entrance and all the way to the cemetery.
Hassan Abdul Salheen Bensawi Hassan counted the names of his cousins and their children, whose bodies arrived alongside the body of his own son.
Hassan said his son Ali, a father of four, "had gone to Derna to earn a decent living three years ago and never once came back, and today he came back dead."
Villager Hajj Mohamed Fathi Abou Radi, who buried his brother-in-law, said that many Egyptians are either still missing or their bodies have not been returned from Derna.
He said, "We now demand that they help the poor people whose bodies have not been found. My neighbour received the bodies of two of his sons, but the third is still missing."