Families of ferry passengers lash out at Egyptian government over response to tragedy

SAFAGA, Egypt — Family members of passengers on a ferry that sank Friday in the Red Sea protested on 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 1,000 feared dead.

Lawmakers called for investigations and said the ship's owner had been responsible for previous disasters. Egyptian officials said the captain was missing, and some survivors alleged he had jumped into one of the first lifeboats out rather than stay with the crippled ship.

Late Sunday, police put the number of those rescued at 401 — up from 376 reported on Saturday and an indication that few more survivors would be found. It was unclear when the additional 25 people had been rescued.

A total of 195 bodies have been recovered.

Among the survivors was 5-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Hassan, kept afloat for more than 20 hours by a life ring. Doctors said the boy was in good condition but apparently had lost his parents, sister and brother.

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. On Saturday, at similar demonstrations in the port 280 miles southeast of Cairo, family members threw stones at police.

"Where is the president, where are our sons? Where are the bodies? We want to know the fate of the children," yelled the protesters, who had been waiting in the area for two days.

"If you don't have the bodies, at least give us (death) certificates and let us go. You have been torturing us for days," shouted Heshmat Mohammed Hassan, whose brother is still missing.

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.

Mubarak flew to Hurghada, about 40 miles north of Safaga, on Saturday and visited survivors in two hospitals. Television pictures of the visit, which normally would have carried sound of Mubarak's conversations, were silent.