Report on February ferry disaster slams shipping co., government

A report submitted to parliament last week assigned blame for February’s Al-Salam 98 ferry disaster, in which more than a thousand passengers died, to the ship’s owner and government transportation agencies. “The parliamentary findings showed up the situation at Egypt’s Red Sea ports,” said Hafez Abu Seada, Secretary-General of the non-governmental Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR). “There are no real rules currently governing ports and ship maintenance.” “There’s a lack of certification and examination of ships,” Abu Seada added, “especially the passenger ferries operating between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.” On 2 February, the Al-Salam Bocaccio 98 set out from the Saudi town of Dubah carrying 1,414 passengers, en route to the Egyptian port of Safaga, some 500 km southeast of Cairo. Not long after its departure, however, a fire broke out on one of the vessel’s lower decks, causing it to sink 91.7 km off the Egyptian coast. Of all passengers on board the 35-year-old ship, only about 400 were saved during the several days of rescue efforts that followed. The new parliamentary report aimed its harshest criticisms at the owner of the doomed vessel, the Al-Salam Maritime Transport Company, which it accused of gross negligence. "Testimony provided by passengers… confirmed that [the ferry] regularly carried more than 2,000 people”, in spite of regulations limiting passenger numbers to 1,200, Hamdi El-Tahhan, chairman of the parliamentary fact-finding committee on the disaster, was quoted as saying in the state press. The report went on to note that the ferry had been inadequately maintained and lacked basic emergency equipment. The report further noted that the validity of the life jackets on board the vessel had expired five years earlier. Al-Salam company owner Mamdouh Ismail, who enjoys a close relationship with the government through his position in the upper house of parliament, was also criticised for fleeing to London following news of the disaster. The report suggested that Ismail’s position on the board of the Red Sea Ports Authority allowed him to both sidestep safety regulations and unfairly monopolise the Red Sea shipping business. Government transport agencies were also blamed by the fact-finding commission for allowing the ferry to sail without meeting minimum safety standards, as well as for their slow response to the unfolding catastrophe. The report concluded by making an appeal “to reform and restructure the maritime transport sector”. Local human rights officials, meanwhile, expressed approval of the report’s findings. “I think the parliamentary report was fair and revealed the main reasons for the disaster,” commented Abu Seada. “Hopefully, it will now be used to improve procedures and establish new regulations so as to avoid similar disasters in the future and ensure the safety of passengers.” In mid-February, the EOHR issued its own 46-page report that also noted a number of institutional failures on the part of the private and government agencies involved. “National institutions failed to adequately deal with the sinking of the Al-Salam 98,” the EOHR study stated at the time. “This tragedy illustrates how far the level of service in all sectors, without exception, has fallen.”