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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.