MAKKAH, 4 January 2007 — The sinking of the El-Salaam Boccaccio 98, the passenger ferry that went down in the Red Sea on Feb. 3 last year lingered on the minds of Egyptian pilgrims as they returned to their country by the same type of transport that killed 1,018 passengers 11 months ago.
Anwar Bayumi, a pilgrim and an owner of a travel agency that organizes Haj and Umrah trips in Egypt and who himself arrived for this past Haj by ferry, said he understood why many Egyptians are foregoing the economic convenience of ferry travel. “But if every time an accident took place — whether on land, in the sea or in the air — I stopped traveling, then I should lock myself in my room and not go out at all,” he added.
“I traveled here on a ferry because that is the only way I can afford to do the pilgrimage,” said Egyptian farmer Sufyan Abu Raseen.
Abdul Samie Redwan, a health care worker, said that the nature of his trip eliminated all concerns about the safety of traveling by ferry on the Red Sea. “The Haj erased the fear in my heart,” he said. “I am happy that I was finally able to come. I planned this for five years and I wasn’t about to let worrying about accidents ruin my dream.”
Nafisah Abu Al-Azem, another Egyptian pilgrim, was a bit more concerned about her ferry ride for Haj, her second in five years.
“I was watching the clock,” she said. “The journey took 32 hours from Suez to Jeddah. It felt like a month.”
Abdul Hameed Nabhan, another pilgrim, said he wrote his last will and testament before boarding a Jeddah-bound ferry. He said he was particularly worried because the Red Sea is choppy in the winter months, but that the weather turned out to be calm for his trip. His relatives weren’t helping with his fears — he said they kept reminding him of the Boccaccio 98. “Now I am returning and I hope the weather will still be nice,” he said.
Pilgrims used to have no choice in their port of call in Saudi Arabia: Jeddah. Today they can choose to arrive at Yanbu, about 360 km north of Jeddah, or Duba, about 220 km south of the border with Jordan.
The Boccaccio 98 was traveling from Duba to Safaga in southern Egypt when it sank after listing during an engine fire.
Egyptian pilgrim Rabie Al-Hawari said ferry transport is convenient and cheap and popular among poorer Muslims performing their religious duty. He said that it’s useless to be concerned about sea-bound tragedies. “Life and death are in the hands of God,” he said.
The Boccaccio 98 was carrying mostly Egyptian laborers returning home from work in northern Saudi Arabia. The cause of the accident has been attributed to unsafe modifications to the ship in 1991, including expansion of the upper decks and the addition of two levels.
Families of the dead were outraged after learning that the ferry began listing while it was still in site of the port at Duba but the ship’s captain decided to continue onward, assuming the crew would be able to extinguish the fire. It is believed the accumulation of water on the decks from the firefighting efforts caused the ship to list, take on seawater and sink.
