CAIRO, Dec 20 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt's prosecutor general has referred on Saturday the captain and assistant captain of the Kuwaiti trade ship which crashed into an Egyptian fishing boat in the Red Sea on Sunday to an urgent criminal trial.

The fishing boat, 'Badr al-Islam', was carrying 40 Egyptian fishermen and sailing in the Gabal al-Zayt region when it collided with a trade ship in the Red Sea early Sunday, killing 13 fishermen.

According to a statement by the prosecutor general, the defendants were charged with manslaughter, refraining from helping the victims, and destruction of an Egyptian fishing boat.

The health ministry announced on Friday that the death toll of the sunken fishing boat has risen to 25, and the number of injured has reached 18.

According to official statements, only two of the 40 fishermen remain missing.

The South Sinai prosecutor had ordered on Tuesday the detention of the captain and his assistant.The prosecution said that the assistant captain in custody was in charge of the ship when it collided with the boat, after the captain delegated to him the responsibility to sail through the sea.

Two other assistant captains were released from custody.

Egypt's minister of social solidarity announced on Monday granting the families of those killed in the incident compensation worth of 10,000 Egyptian pounds.

Around 1000 people died in the Red Sea in February 2006 when a ferry sailing from Saudi Arabia caught fire, going down in history as one of Egypt's worst sea accidents.