CAIRO, 6 February 2006 — Dozens more survivors of the Red Sea ferry disaster were rescued on Saturday night. Sixty-one of them were found during the night and arrived in the Egyptian port of Hurghada yesterday. Six others arrived in Duba, said a senior port official at Safaga.
Of the latest survivors, 51 were plucked out of the waters by an Indian naval vessel while some were found floating off Sharm El-Sheikh and rescued by an Egyptian team. The new figures would bring the total number of survivors to more than 460, leaving about 700 people unaccounted for. Search teams have recovered 195 bodies.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has instructed authorities to airlift survivors of the tragedy including Saudis, Egyptians and other nationals for treatment at the Kingdom’s hospitals, an official source at the Interior Ministry said.
The royal gesture covers not only the airlifting of Saudi survivors receiving treatment at Egyptian hospitals to the Kingdom but also Egyptians rescued by Saudi coast guards, the source said. The king also urged officials to facilitate transportation of bodies soon after the completion of rescue operation.
A working team set up at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo identified 11 new Saudi survivors of the tragedy as Muhammad Al-Sulaiman, Fawaz Al-Samadani, Tarek Naqadi, Abdul Aziz Al-Fayez, Muhammad Al-Howaiti, Mousa Al-Howaiti, Eman Al-Harbi, Dalal Al-Harbi, Saud Al-Bishi, Danya Al-Samadani and Saad Al-Otaibi.
The Saudi Coast Guard yesterday rescued six passengers including five Egyptians — Adel Abunnasr, Rani Kamal Muhammad, Abul Wafa Fadlullah, Muhammad Ismail and Shabeeb Bakheet Al-Sayyed. They also picked two unidentified bodies, the source said.
For relatives gathered in Safaga, the doomed ship’s destination, the hope of more rescues was slowly giving way to a grim wait for bodies as controversy mounted over the safety of the vessel, the actions of its captain and the rescue operation itself.
Survivors told of a fire that broke out Friday on the packed 36-year-old Panamanian-flagged ferry shortly after its departure from the Saudi port of Duba. After the crew failed to extinguish it properly, the ship started to list and went down within 10 minutes, they said.
In Safaga, a slide-show of bodies was organized for a group of around 350 relatives to identify their loved ones. Angry relatives destroyed an ambulance yesterday.
In the resort of Hurghada, medics acknowledged that time was ticking away for any survivors still waiting to be pulled out of the sea.
Several witnesses have accused the captain, Omar Sayed, of refusing to acknowledge the risk posed by the fire. “He could have gone back to Saudi Arabia, but he’s madman, he wanted to prove that he’s the hero,” said Cairo teacher Mohammed Sharaf Mustafa. The captain, who according to witnesses was one of the first to abandon ship, remains unaccounted for.
