Once a tranquil, albeit densely populated city on Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast, Derna now echoes to the sound of gut-wrenching wails, some for help, others for those still missing and likely killed in streets that were turned into swirling rivers by Storm Daniel.

This week is the 12th anniversary of the outbreak of the first Libyan civil war but there will be no fanfare or grand speeches commemorating what was the beginning of the end for Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.

After years of pervasive instability, the world is quickly running out of adjectives to accurately describe the multifaceted and multidimensional crises in Libya spawned during the chaotic decade following the collapse of Muammar Qaddafi’s 42-year regime in 2011.

On Wednesday, protesters stormed the Iraqi parliament in the Green Zone in Baghdad, removing blast walls and crowding into the fortified area while chanting anti-Iran slogans.

Just over a decade ago, a seemingly chaotic revolution, sparked by a tragic case of self-immolation, ushered in a period of unbridled hope and optimism in Tunisia, a country wracked by more than two decades of autocratic rule.