Since flooding swept away entire neighborhoods in the Libyan city of Derna last month, Abdusalam Al-Qadi has been searching for his father and brother. He doesn’t expect to find them alive, he just wants to bury them so he can have a grave to mourn them.

Together with friends, he has searched in the mud where the family’s house once stood. He has asked all the hospitals. He has looked at many of the photos of the 4,000 dead that have been recovered so far.

“We thought maybe the sea took them. Maybe they were in port. Those were really hard days. It’s still hard days,” said the 43-year-old who took two days to travel to Derna from his new home in the US.

Three weeks after floods killed thousands, many survivors still haven’t found their loved onesas Libya’s rival factions argue over who is to blame for the destruction and how to rebuild the shattered city.

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Many families must now accept the idea that they may never know what happened to parents, children or others relatives despite attempts to identify the dead – many of whom were summarily buried in mass graves – using photographs or DNA tests.

Kadi, who could barely recognize his birthplace when he arrived, says his mother and sister continue to hold out hope that his father and brother survived. But Cuddy says he’s had to accept the fact that they’re gone.

“What was difficult in the early days was hope. People said they saw them somewhere. For us it was like they were dying again every day,” he said. “It was driving me crazy.”

Difficult to rebuild the city

Derna, a coastal city in eastern Libya known as a cultural center, was built on a seasonally flowing river that empties into the sea.

The city was plunged into chaos after the 2011 Libyan uprising. Islamic State militants captured the city in 2015 – killing one of Qadi’s two brothers – before it fell to the eastern forces under Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

The destruction now is on a different scale. Overnight, a narrow valley of roads and buildings turned into a vast expanse of mud, rocks and ruined houses.

The organization of the reconstruction of Derna will, however, be complicationwith Libya divided between the internationally recognized government in Tripoli in the west and the eastern areas controlled by Haftar.

Relief efforts are visible on the streets, with excavators removing debris. But residents, who spoke to Reuters last week, complained that they had received no help in repairing the damage or rebuilding homes and businesses.

Mohammed al-Ghail, 49, was trying to clean mud from his brother’s grocery store. “There is an absolute absence of the state to reassure the citizens,” he said. “We decided to ease our pain by cleaning up what we could to bring the affected areas back to life.”

The government in the east, which is not recognized internationally, said on Sunday it was postponing a planned international reconstruction conference. The government in Tripoli has also said it will hold a conference, without setting a date.

In a fragmented state, the rebuilding and coordination required could spark yet another power struggle, analysts say.

Labor costs have already risen sharply for Khaled al-Fortas, who said he cannot afford the high wages demanded by workers to help him clean up his damaged home.

For Kadi, the priority remains finding his missing family members – a daunting task for him and thousands of others.

“An entire city was submerged in water, with people in the buildings,” he said. “It is impossible to retrieve them with our own capabilities.”