Two centuries after American Marines stormed its harbor in the Barbary Wars, Derna found itself besieged again -- this time by its own country's forces. Beginning in August 2016, the Libyan National Army under Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar imposed a blockade on this Mediterranean port city that would last 21 months, cutting off food, medicine, fuel, and hope before culminating in a bloody urban assault.
Derna had been contested ground since the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011. Various militant factions, including the Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna and remnants of the Islamic State, had established control over parts of the city during the chaotic Derna campaign of 2014 to 2016. When the Libyan National Army completed its operations in the surrounding area, it turned its attention to the city itself. Rather than risk costly urban warfare immediately, the LNA chose strangulation. The siege began in August 2016, encircling a civilian population that had already endured years of factional violence. Derna, hemmed in by mountains to the south and the sea to the north, offered few escape routes.
In August 2017, after militants of the Shura Council executed Air Colonel Adel Jehani -- whose plane they had shot down -- Brigadier Salem Rifadi, head of the Omar Mukhtar Operations Room tasked with taking Derna, declared a total blockade. His words left no ambiguity: no food, no medicine, no cooking gas, no petrol, nothing would be allowed in. For civilians trapped inside, daily life became a calculus of scarcity. The National Commission for Human Rights in Libya condemned the siege as a war crime. The internationally recognized Government of National Accord denounced Haftar's actions. International observers noted the devastating toll on ordinary residents -- families who had nothing to do with the armed factions controlling parts of their city but who bore the full weight of collective punishment.
The blockade was punctuated by violence from above. In October 2017, an airstrike hit Derna, killing at least 15 civilians, including women and children, and wounding 17 or more. Inside the besieged city, factional tensions simmered: in December 2017, the Shura Council executed an Islamic State member after a failed assassination attempt against one of its senior leaders, a reminder that Derna's civilians were caught between multiple armed groups with competing agendas. By spring 2018, the LNA judged conditions ripe for an assault. On 7 May, ground forces launched an offensive against the city, beginning months of urban combat that ground through neighborhoods block by block.
The battle that followed the siege's end was protracted and destructive. From May 2018 through February 2019, LNA forces fought their way into Derna against resistance from entrenched militants who had spent years fortifying positions. By 12 February 2019, the LNA declared the city captured, ending both the battle and the siege that preceded it. For Derna's residents, liberation from the blockade was inseparable from the destruction that accompanied it. The city that emerged was scarred -- by years of factional rule, by 21 months of deprivation, and by the assault that ended it. The siege of Derna became one of the defining episodes of Libya's post-Gaddafi civil wars, illustrating how a country's disintegration could trap entire populations between forces none of them chose and few could escape.
Located at 32.77°N, 22.63°E on the Libyan coast. Derna occupies a narrow coastal strip backed by the Jebel Akhdar highlands. The city's position between mountains and sea -- which made it a natural defensive position -- also made the siege effective, as few routes in or out existed. Nearest airport: Benina/Benghazi (HLLB) approximately 250 km west. At 5,000-8,000 ft, the geography of the siege becomes clear: the mountain barrier to the south, the Mediterranean to the north, and the LNA encirclement positions on the approaches.