Libya's ancient city of Cyrene, on year after the deadly floods

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00:00Today, this is all the remains of Qairin, one of the largest ever Greek colonies to

00:05be discovered in Libya.

00:07The archaeological site dates back to the 7th century BCE.

00:10It nestles between two mountains and two rivers 100 kilometers away from the city of Darna,

00:15and was battered by flooding on September 11, 2023.

00:19The water flowed everywhere, and especially the two rivers which overflowed and submerged

00:27this whole site.

00:30To clear the water, we had to create channels by digging the earth.

00:40Parts of Qairin were badly damaged, but when the waters receded, new discoveries like a

00:44unique drainage system were also revealed.

00:48There in that cavity you have a sort of tunnel, it wasn't visible before, we would have never

00:52imagined it was connected to the head of the river, we can't determine the exact date of

00:56its creation yet, but it must at least go back to the Hellenistic period, more research

01:00is needed.

01:03Archaeologists are waiting for funding promised by authorities to come through to further

01:07research and restore the site.

01:10The rebuilding of Darna itself is a more pressing priority, a quarter of it was wiped out and

01:15historic neighborhoods were destroyed.

01:19This was the site of the Al-Atik Mosque, one of the oldest mosques of Darna, and well known

01:25for its 40 domes.

01:28The loss is particularly hard for Malek, as she had helped to restore the old quarter

01:31in 2018 after parts were destroyed by a conflict.

01:36When you spend enough time in a place, four years of restoring it, of course it's awful

01:42when you see it's gone.

01:46She still has photos of what was lost, the markets, the Red Square, the Medina, irreplaceable

01:51pieces of Darna's cultural heritage that have been washed away.

01:55She and others are determined to rebuild what they can.

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