JEDDAH, 27 August 2003 — Some 1,300 passengers on the Egyptian ship Al-Safa were marooned in the Red Sea for 112 hours last week as a result of a technical fault.
A number of passengers have complained to Saudi and Egyptian authorities demanding compensation for their ordeal.
Khaled Ahmad Balhamer, Jamal Ridwan and Hatem Ibrahim told Al-Watan they had boarded the ship last Tuesday with their families and found themselves stuck. “The ship left the Egyptian port of Suez at 8 a.m., but at 3 p.m. we noticed that the ship was not moving,” the passengers said, adding that the crew raised the SOS call only after 20 hours.
They said many passengers faced hardship as a result of the continuous stay on board the ship on the high seas. Passengers included a large number of women, children and the elderly. They also claimed that a team of Saudi Border Guards visited the ship after its arrival in Jeddah and blamed the crew for the ordeal of the passengers.
Abdul Aziz Al-Oqail, Mahmoud Saad and Abdul Aziz Muhiyuddin, who were also on board the ship, said they wondered how Egyptian authorities could allow the ship to sail without checking its condition.
