Derna, Libya

Old Market of Derna

In the Hellenistic period the ancient city of Darnis was part of the Libyan Pentapolis colonized by the Greeks.[9][11] Under Rome, it became a civil and later the religious metropolis of the province of Libya Secunda, or Libya Inferior, that is, the Marmarica region. The names of some of its metropolitan bishops are found in extant documents. Piso was one of the Eastern bishops who withdrew from the Council of Sardica and set up their own council at Philippopolis in 347. Early 5th-century Dioscorus is known because of a dispute he had with the bishop of Erythrum. Daniel took part in the Council of Ephesus in 431. In addition, John Moschus speaks of a bishop Thedodorus of Darnis as having had a vision of Saint Leo the Great in the mid-5th century.[10][12][13]

No longer a residential bishopric, Darnis is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[14]

The city was resettled by the refugees from Islamic Spain (Expulsion of the Moriscos) in 1493 on the site of the ancient settlement.

Under Ottoman rule, Derna was initially under the governor at Tripoli, but shortly after 1711, it fell under the Karamanli sultanate until 1835, when it became a dependency of the autonomous sanjak of Benghazi, essentially Cyrenaica, which was governed directly from Constantinople.[15] This in turn, in 1875, became the vilayet of Cyrenaica.[16] In the 1850s, it had an estimated 4,500 inhabitants,[17] who lived by agriculture, fishing and the coastal trade.[10]

The oldest mosque in Derna is Al-masjeed al-ateeq, or the "Old Mosque", restored by wali Mahmoud Karamanli in 1772, vaulted with 42 small cupolas. This kind of vault was in use due to lack of some materials, like timber or stone in the region of Cyrenaica. There is another mosque, named Masjeed az-zawiyah, built in 1846, more strictly curved in the side of a hill.

The French admiral Gantheaume landed at Derna in June 1800 in an attempt to reinforce Napoleon in Egypt by bringing troops overland, but was rebuffed by the local garrison.[18][19]

Derna was the location of the 1805 Battle of Derne, in which forces under U.S. Lieutenant and former Consul to Tripoli William Eaton—who had marched 500 miles (800 km) across the Libyan Desert from Alexandria—captured the city as part of the First Barbary War.

Italian leader Benito Mussolini in Derna

On 16 October 1911, Italian troops occupied Derna during the Italo-Turkish War. The Italian rule over Derna lasted 29 years, 3 months, and 14 days until it was captured on 30 January 1941 by Australian Troops during the Second World War's North African Campaign[20] On 6 April 1941, German forces retook the city from the British, and on 15 November 1942, British forces recaptured it.

Mausoleum of a Sahaba (companion of Muhammad) before its destruction by Salafis.

Mosque and Shrine of Sahaba in Derna, 2009

In 2007, American troops in Iraq uncovered a list of foreign fighters for the Iraqi insurgency. Of the 112 Libyans on the list, 52 had come from Derna. Derna has the reputation of being the most fundamentalist Muslim city in Libya.[21]

Battle of Derna (2018)

Following mass protests on 18 February 2011, the city came under the control of the National Transitional Council, breaking from the Libyan government.[22][23] The city was never retaken before Gaddafi's ouster from Tripoli and the establishment of a new government. In October 2014, local militants affiliated with the Islamic Youth Shura Council publicly pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State.[24] In November 2014, al-Baghdadi released an audio-recording accepting the pledge of allegiance and announced the expansion of his group.[25] On June 28, 2018, forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar claimed to have taken full control of the city, following a two-year siege of the city that culminated in a month-long battle.[26]

On 10 September 2023, Storm Daniel made landfall in Libya near Benghazi. While moving east-southeast, the storm caused torrential rainfall and extreme flooding in Derna, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency for the area,[27][28] after collapses in the early morning of the next day of the Derna dam and the Mansour dam,[29] which caused floodwaters to inundate the areas of the city around the Wadi Derna.[30][31] At least 3,252 people were confirmed dead,[32] with more than 11,300 casualties were initially estimated.[33][34] Meanwhile, a government minister said that 25% of Derna had "disappeared",[35] with large parts of the city washed out to sea.[36]