Classic era and Middle Ages In the
Hellenistic period the ancient city of Darnis was part of the
Libyan Pentapolis colonized by the
Greeks. 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. No longer a residential bishopric, Darnis is today listed by the
Catholic Church as a
titular see. The city was resettled by the refugees from
Islamic Spain (
Expulsion of the Moriscos) in 1493 on the site of the ancient settlement.
Modern era Ottoman times 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. This in turn, in 1875, became the
vilayet of
Cyrenaica. In the 1850s, it had an estimated 4,500 inhabitants, who lived by agriculture, fishing and the coastal trade. 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 across the
Libyan Desert from
Alexandria—captured the city as part of the
First Barbary War. Ottoman rule in Derna came to an end on 16 October 1911, with the city's capture by Italian troops during the
Italo-Turkish War.
World War II in Derna 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. On 6 April 1941, German forces retook the city from the British, and on 15 November 1942, British forces recaptured it. The airbase that became
RAF_Derna and the nearby
Martuba Airbase were strategic hubs for air support to the
land campaigns in the Western Desert and attacks on shipping in the Mediterranean.
Libyan Republic and civil war 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. Following
mass protests on 18 February 2011, the city came under the control of the
National Transitional Council, breaking from the Libyan government. 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. In November 2014, al-Baghdadi released an audio-recording accepting the pledge of allegiance and announced the expansion of his group. 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.
Storm Daniel 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, after
collapses in the early morning of the next day of the Derna dam and the Mansour dam, which caused floodwaters to inundate the areas of the city around the
Wadi Derna. At least 4,352 people were confirmed dead, with more than 11,300 casualties were initially estimated. Meanwhile, a government minister said that 25% of Derna had "disappeared", with large parts of the city washed out to sea. ==Geography==