EGYPT: Hundreds of Egyptian men crowded around the entrance to Safaga port yesterday, weeping and angry as they awaited news of relatives missing on a ferry which had sunk overnight in the Red Sea.
"They are not telling us anything," shouted Gadir Mohammed. "Where are the corpses? Where are they taking the survivors?"
One man wept on another's shoulder and people around him tried to comfort him. "God willing, he'll come. God willing, he'll come."
An official read out the names of the passengers on the ferry. Relatives sat crying and consoling each other on the road near the speakers through which the names were announced.Search and rescue teams found 300 survivors from almost 1,400 passengers and crew of the al-Salam Boccaccio 98 which sank during a crossing from the Saudi port of Duba to Safaga, 600km (375 miles) southeast of Cairo.
Rescue workers last night were running out of hope of finding more survivors. Gen Mahfouz Taha, head of the Red Sea Ports Authority, said rescue efforts would continue in the hope of finding more survivors.
However, one source close to the operations said: "There aren't expected to be many survivors, because it's been so long since the ship went down."
The relatives, mostly male and dressed in traditional Egyptian robes common in rural areas, and mainly from families of Egyptians working in Saudi Arabia, sat on the pavement outside the gates of the port.
"We heard that the boat sank. Many people from the village have come," said Hassan Mohamed, who was waiting for a cousin working in Kuwait.
Hamed Abdel Bari (25), standing next to his weeping brother, said he was waiting for other brothers working in Saudi Arabia.
Some complained about a lack of information; others that the riot police guarding the entrance were trying to make them disperse. "They keep telling us to go away, as if we're not humans," said 19-year-old Ali Aboul Azaim.
There were differing figures given for the number of passengers on board the 36-year-old al-Salam Boccaccio 98.
Egypt's state news agency quoted a figure of 1,272, of whom 1,158 were Egyptian. It said there were 99 Saudis on board as well as a handful of people from Syria, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, Sudan and one from Canada. There was also a crew of about 100 and a cargo of two dozen cars.
There have been other accidents in the busy shipping lanes of the Red Sea, although none as serious as yesterday's. Last October a ship from the same ferry company, the al-Salam 95, sank after colliding with another ship. Two people were killed and almost 40 injured.
Mamdouh Radi, who runs the fleet for al-Salam Maritime Transport Company, said that 300 survivors were on their way to Safaga or had already arrived.
Egyptian television ran video showing a black rubber dinghy, filmed during a flight over the scene of the disaster. But it was impossible to see if anyone was aboard.
The 11,800 tonne ferry last had contact with shore at about 10pm local time on Thursday on its way to Safaga from Duba in northwest Saudi Arabia, one official said.
An official at the shipping company, which owned the Panamanian-registered ferry, said it remained unclear what had happened to the ship, which was built in Italy in 1970 and moved to the Egyptian company in 1998.
But none of the officials said there was any indication that the sinking was the result of an attack on the ferry.
The ship was of a type that can sink quickly if water enters through one of the doors through which vehicles drive aboard, experts said. That happened with the ferries Herald of Free Enterprise off Belgium in 1987 and the MS Estonia in the Baltic in 1994.
"If these doors are open for any reason, then you've had it," said Richard Clayton, news editor at the shipping weekly Fairplay.