JEDDAH, 4 February 2006 — Egyptians living in the Kingdom reacted with anger once they heard the tragic news of the sinking of Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 in the Red Sea with more than 1,300 passengers aboard.
The ferry left at 7.30 p.m. local time Thursday from the Saudi port of Duba, a common transit point for tens of thousands of low-income Egyptian expatriates working in Saudi Arabia to return home, for Safaga in Egypt. The trip takes four to six hours normally.
Many Egyptian residents said that the incident brought back the painful memory the sinking of the Salem Express 15 years ago. More than 1,000 passengers were aboard that ship and 464 of them died in the tragic incident in Egyptian territorial waters when the ship hit a coral reef.
Ateya Al-Rumi, an Egyptian chef in a Makkah hotel, said to Arab News that he said goodbye to his wife and children who sailed on the ship. The last time he contacted them was about 8 p.m. when the ship sailed.
“They did not contact me the next day afternoon. I tried to contact them but there was no answer. I fainted when I heard the news of the sinking ship,” Al-Rumi said.
Al-Rumi lives and works in Saudi Arabia with his family and he sent his wife and children to Egypt to spend the vacation. “I do not know their fate, whether they are alive of dead,” he said.
Hundreds of relatives of the passengers complained bitterly of the lack of information as they waited in the Egyptian port of Safaga, where the ship had been scheduled to dock at 3 a.m. yesterday.
“There is nobody ... to tell us what is going on,” said Ahmed Abdul Hamid, a teacher from the southern Egyptian city of Assuit who was waiting for his cousin. “We are in a complete blackout.”
“How can they put all these passengers in such an old ship that was not fit for sailing?” he asked, adding, “Somebody should be blamed.”
Arab News sources from Safaga seaport in Egypt said that the search is still continuing for survivors and there is news that some people have indeed survived.
Neither Egyptian nor Saudis trust sailing from Saudi to Egypt because of the recurrent accidents. Many Egyptians call the shipping line between Saudi Arabia and Egypt “the dead road.”
Shaker Abdul Aziz, an Egyptian living in the Kingdom, called for the building of a land bridge that connects Saudi Arabia with Egypt like the one between the Kingdom and Bahrain to end such tragic incidents. With the establishment of such a bridge, the number of tragic incidents would drop, he hoped.
Abdul Aziz added that the companies working in the field of maritime transport hold the responsibility for this incident because they did not renew nor maintain their fleet of ships.
He said that these companies should have looked at the weather forecast before issuing orders for the ship to sail should the weather is to blame for the accident.
