Safaga, Egypt – Family members of passengers on a ferry that sank in the Red Sea protested Sunday as they waited in vain for news of their loved ones, accusing Egypt’s government of mishandling the rescue after the ship went down with more than 1,400 people on board.
Only a handful more passengers were pulled from the sea, dashing hopes for some 800 people missing and feared dead.
Egyptian officials said the captain was missing, and some survivors alleged he had jumped into one of the first lifeboats available rather than stay with the crippled ferry. A lawmaker said ships operated by the same company had been involved in past tragedies, including one that sank last year.
Late Sunday, police put the number of those rescued at 401 – up from 376 reported Saturday and an indication that few more survivors would probably be found.
A total of 195 bodies have been recovered.
The Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 was carrying more than 1,400 passengers and crew and 220 cars when it quickly sank early Friday about 55 miles from the Egyptian Red Sea port of Hurghada. Most of the passengers were Egyptian workers returning from Saudi Arabia.
Outside the Red Sea port in Safaga, where survivors were being taken, about 100 family members shouted at police and criticized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for not providing more information.
The families need death certificates to claim a payment of $5,200 that the president has said should go to the family of each victim. The president said survivors would each get $2,600.
Fire broke out in the vessel’s parking bay when it was about 20 miles from the Saudi shore from where it had sailed, survivors said Sunday. The crew decided to push across the Red Sea, to try to reach Egypt’s shores 110 miles away in stormy weather.
Initial offers of help in the rescue effort from the United States and Britain were rejected, and four Egyptian ships reached the scene only by Friday afternoon, about 10 hours after the ferry was believed to have capsized.
Khaled Hassan, a 27-year-old survivor from near Luxor who was traveling home after working in Kuwait, said he saw the ship’s captain jump into a lifeboat as passengers were left behind. His story could not be verified.
Abdul Muhsin Rayan, a 35-year-old from Sohag who had been working in Saudi Arabia, said that as smoke engulfed the ship, crew members told the passengers not to put on life jackets that were nearby because that would panic women and children.
“From the captain on down, no one gave us any instructions on what to do,” he said from a hospital bed.
Mubarak spokesman Suleiman Awad said the ferry did not have enough lifeboats and an investigation was underway into the ship’s seaworthiness.
