Ferry: Hopes fade fast for missing
2002-09-28 22:21
Dakar - Rescuers held out little hope on Saturday of finding about 540 people still missing after a Senegalese ferry capsized in stormy seas off the coast of Gambia.
Of the 796 people listed on board the ferry Le Joola, 104 had been saved, rescue officials in Dakar said.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, responding to protests outside the presidential palace over the fate of the passengers, said 150 corpses had so far been recovered and brought to Gambia.
Hundreds of relatives, meanwhile, assembled at the port of Dakar to await news of their loved ones, but the prospect of search boats discovering more survivors from one of Africa's worst boat tragedies began to dim.
Protesters demanded to know how many people had died in the disaster.
President Wade came out of his palace to speak to the demonstrators and said he understood their grief after officials acknowledged the boat was overloaded when it capsized.
Wade said the state-owned boat, which was operated by the army, was not fit to venture into open seas.
"It was a boat designed for lakes. It was not made for the sea. The responsibility of the state is clear," said Wade, adding the families of the victims would receive compensation.
Few believed the fishing trawlers and boats from the navies of Senegal and Gambia would find more passengers alive after nightfall.
An official at the government crisis unit set up in Dakar said: "Hopes of finding more survivors are getting slimmer."
"I just had to come to see," said Amina Ndiaye, waiting at the port of Dakar for any news of her nine-year-old son, Abdoulaye, who was on board.
Many of the passengers were students heading for Dakar to start the new school term. There were at least two dozen Europeans on board the ferry, whose passengers were mostly from Senegal and Guinea Bissau.
"I survived, but I saw my wife drown and I could do nothing to help," said Frenchman Patrice Auvray, who was taken to hospital in Gambia.
French soldiers from the base in Dakar set up an emergency medical centre to help survivors.
Children?s cried
The ferry - designed to carry 550 - capsized at 23:00 on Thursday, battered by fierce wind and rain.
Throughout Friday night five fishing trawlers scoured the choppy seas for survivors.
The Senegalese army said rescue operations would continue on Saturday around the site and inside the boat, which had not sunk completely. According to the army, three boats were being used in the rescue effort as well as a French army helicopter.
"Things happened very quickly. There were strong gusts of wind and rain and that caused the boat to capsize," said survivor Ousman Gningue, who was taken to hospital in Dakar.
"All 27 of us were sitting by the side of the vessel," said Mariama Diouf, a 39-year-old Senegalese woman who was among a group of survivors brought aboard a fishing trawler to Gambia, a tiny country which almost divides Senegal in two.
The ferry was on its way from the southern city of Ziguinchor in Casamance province to Senegal's capital, Dakar.
"The boat overturned in less than five minutes," said Moulay Badgi. "I heard the crying of the children and it was terrible."
The government has declared three days of national mourning.
The people of the lush, agricultural Casamance region are almost cut off from the rest of Senegal by a 20-year-long separatist rebellion by the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), making road travel unsafe.
That insecurity and the bureaucratic problems of crossing Gambia have boosted passenger demand for the sea journey.