ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal, Oct 3 (AFP) - Hundreds of grieving families on Thursday attended a memorial service for nearly 1,000 people who died last week when a Senegalese ferry capsized off the coast of west Africa. Among the mourners in the southern Senagalese town of Ziguinchor, where the ferry's fateful journey began on September 26, were many who still agonized over their powerlessness on the day of the disaster. Electrician Joachim Badiane was at the port when the ship set off. "I must have seen the Joola leave more than 20 times," he said. "But this time I was worried. The ship was listing badly". "If I'd had the power to stop it leaving, this disaster would never have happened," said carpenter Seydou Diop. "You didn't have to be psychic to see the ship was going to get into trouble". Like Badiane, he had lost relatives on the Joola. No-one seems to have found an adequate response to the disaster, least of all the the west African country's armed forces and transport ministers, who resigned on Tuesday. "It's the doctor arriving after the patient has died," said one Zinguinchor resident. The nation has more questions than answers: "Who are we and where are we going?" asked an editorial in the Dakar newspaper Le Soleil on Wednesday. On Tuesday President Abdoulaye Wade said in a televised address: "Senegalese from all walks of life must look each other in the eye, understand and ask why this has happened. This examination of our consciences... may save us from similar catastrophes in the future." With ample evidence of incompetence and negligence, the president did not wait for a full investigation report before sacking the two ministers on Tuesday and he said more disciplinary measures were to come. Words such as laissez-faire, laxness, greed and graft dotted the pages of the Senegalese press this week as people in the street shook their heads. "You see the way we travel, the way we are treated as people," one said. Less than 400 corpses, most unidentifiable, have been recovered and almost all the others are thought to have gone down with the vessel, in which the bodies remain trapped. Many are to be buried in unmarked graves, to the deep disquiet of relatives who by tradition wish to lay them to rest in their birthplaces. "We need to shed light on this affair. Victims' families should sue the state" said a doctor who could find no excuses for the Joola's military crew nor the office at Ziuinchor that had sold too many tickets. The Joola, built for 550 passengers, had more than a thousand on board, plus fifty crew. Only 64 people were saved. The true death toll may never be known. Witnesses said they knew of people who had bought tickets but were not on the passenger list, raising suspicions of illicit ticket sales. Despite being technically unsuitable for ocean voyages, the Joola was seen as not just the cheapest but the safest means of transport between the southern Casamance region and Senegal's capital Dakkar. Roads in the region, sandwiched between Guinea-Bissau and the enclave of Gambia, are notoriously perilous. Casamance has long the target of a separatist rebellion and armed rebels frequently stop cars, robbing or killing the passengers. On Wednesday three people were killed when their car was stopped on the main road linking Casamance and Dakar via Gambia. The Joola's return to service on September 10 after more than a year of repairs had been a cause for celebration for the people of Casamance. When it left Ziguinchor two weeks later, it was carrying, as well as the usual merchants taking goods to the capital, children and students returning to Dakar for the start of the school year, among them pupils at the capital's two football schools. The unidentified remains of 76 victims were this week driven from Gambia to Casamance and buried on Wednesday near the towns of Kafountine and Ziguinchor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~