> ----------
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 21:16:55 EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: FOSG: African Town's Pride and Joy Vanished When Ferry Sank
> 
> African Town's Pride and Joy Vanished When Ferry Sank
> By SOMINI SENGUPTA
> The New York Times
> February 20, 2003
> 
> ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal, Feb. 14 ‹ A single mother in a tin-roofed shack, Marie
> Joseph Tendang once plied these streets long past midnight selling palm 
> wine
> to pay school fees for her daughter. Françoise was her name.
> 
> A modern literature major at the University of Dakar, Françoise was to be
> the first in the family to earn a college degree and when she did, she 
> vowed
> to her mother, she would take her away from the shack to a proper house 
> with
> whitewashed walls and a roof that kept out the rain.
> 
> The sea took Françoise, 20, late one Thursday night last September when a
> boat called the Joola, ferrying three times as many passengers as allowed,
> capsized into the Atlantic.
> 
> By the government's last count, released this month, 1,863 people died as
> the ship was en route to the capital, Dakar, putting the sinking among the
> worst maritime disasters ever.
> 
> The ocean claimed frail grandmothers and babies not yet weaned, fishmongers
> and soldiers, a bandleader, a newlywed, a football coach and his entire
> team, a vast majority of them from this sleepy old town of about 200,000.
> 
> But it is another loss that still haunts nearly every conversation here.
> 
> The ferry that set sail on that Thursday night was the last boat to Dakar
> before school and university classes got under way. On board that night 
> were
> an estimated 400 students like Françoise: the brightest young minds of this
> town, piled virtually on top of each other with their school books, new
> shoes and dreams by the trunkload.
> 
> They were the pride and joy of Ziguinchor and of strivers like Mrs. 
> Tendang.
> 
> When the Joola sank, so too did the future of this town. "It was like a
> brain drain," is how Ibrahima Gassama, the head of a local radio station,
> put it. "A whole generation just disappeared. The cream, the best 
> students."
> 
> Today in the tin-roofed shack where Mrs. Tendang has two sons to raise, the
> only tangible acknowledgment of this mother's loss stands in a corner of 
> the
> bedroom she once shared with Françoise: three sacks of rice donated by the
> government.
> 
> In the capital, government officials say it is too early to speak of
> compensation. No one seems to want to talk about what will happen to the
> bodies still entombed in the wreck.
> 
> The sinking of the Joola, a ferry run by the Senegalese military, was a
> result of official negligence. President Abdoulaye Wade said as much within
> days of the disaster, when he accepted responsibility and pledged
> assistance. An official investigation blamed the wreck on "blatant and
> repeated failures."
> 
> The boat had long operated far beyond its capacity. Some passengers
> routinely piled on without tickets. Normal procedures were disregarded in
> the loading of the ship: passengers and cargo were concentrated on the 
> upper
> decks, and there was insufficient ballast down below, making the ship, 260
> feet from stern to bow, top-heavy and unstable.
> 
> Nor was it equipped with the emergency communication system used by ships
> all over the world. So when a squall blew in shortly before 11 that night,
> the Joola was vulnerable.
> 
> Fewer than 100 people survived. The lucky few who dived into the water 
> spent
> nearly four hours trying to detach a life raft and send up a signal flare,
> the official investigation found.
> 
> It took eight hours for the navy to be alerted, and another two to mount
> rescue efforts.
> 
> "The Joola was frequently ferrying an excess number of passengers, and the
> officials were aware of it," the government investigation concluded. "What
> is astonishing is that no strict and formal measures were taken to put an
> end to such a situation."
> 
> Under pressure, two ministers whose agencies had been responsible for the
> boat resigned. Both have since returned to public service; one is with the
> agency that oversees shipping.
> 
> Five months later, the sinking of the Joola remains a delicate matter for
> the state.
> 
> The government of this developing nation, where two-thirds of the 
> population
> remains below the United Nations poverty line, appears overwhelmed by the
> demands of this disaster. It has received little assistance. There has been
> no visible outpouring of international sympathy or support.
> 
> The Wade administration has said it will revive ferry service between
> Ziguinchor and Dakar. But no one can yet say how many passengers it will
> accommodate, nor what steps will be taken to ensure their safety.
> 
> Government officials were unable this week to provide answers to several
> rudimentary questions. How will compensation to the victims be calculated?
> Why were no DNA tests performed to identify the bodies that were retrieved?
> Can the Joola be raised from the ocean floor?
> 
> Here in Ziguinchor, the town that bears the heaviest burden of the 
> disaster,
> there is no monument for the dead, only what looks like a paupers' grave in
> a barren field down the road from Mrs. Tendang's house.
> 
> Even there, only the lucky few whose bodies have been identified have
> received a proper burial. On the tombstone for Mamadou Lamine Camara, 14,
> someone has lovingly etched, as one would with a finger on a wet cement
> sidewalk, this modest epitaph: "Pray for him."
> 
> For most people here in Ziguinchor, a onetime Portugese colony where donkey
> carts ply the streets and bougainvillea spills over the sagging balconies,
> an overnight ride on the Joola was the best means of getting from here to
> anywhere.
> 
> Flying to Dakar is prohibitively expensive. The roads are perilous. For 20
> years this province, called Casamance, has been embroiled in a separatist
> war. Casamance is separated from the rest of Senegal by Gambia, a narrow
> spit of a country carved out by the British inside what was French West
> Africa.
> 
> For Yoro Mballo, 51, that ship was a chance to realize a dream he had
> abandoned as a young man. Years ago Mr. Mballo began studying medicine at
> the University of Dakar, but he never finished.
> 
> His firstborn son, Alpha Oumar, 22, a geography major at the university, 
> was
> to do it for him. On the night of Sept. 26 his father walked him 100 yards
> from their house, waved and wished him a safe journey. Alpha Oumar was 
> going
> back for his second year at school. He wanted to be a university professor.
> 
> Today his father passes by the cemetery every day on his way to work as a
> schoolteacher. He wants to see the boat raised from the sea. He wants
> someplace to remember.
> -------------------------
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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