Death toll of Red Sea sunken boat rises to 20 - spokesman

Thursday 18-12-2014 12:24 PM
Death toll of Red Sea sunken boat rises to 20 - spokesman

An Egyptian airforce helicopter flies over naval vessels carrying out a search and recovery operation at the site of a plane crash off the coast of the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Shiekh January 4, 2004. REUTERS/Aladin Abdel Naby

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CAIRO, Dec 18 (Aswat Masriya) – The death toll of the Red Sea sunken boat has risen to 20, and the number of injured has reached 18, Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, Health Ministry Spokesman said on Thursday.

All 20 bodies were recovered and transferred to the Tor Hospital morgue, 13 of whom were handed to their families, while the remaining seven are still in the morgue, Abdel Ghaffar added.

Three bodies have been salvaged in the past two days, four others were salvaged on Tuesday, and 13 bodies were immediately found after the accident, he told Aswat Masriya.

The 18 injured persons were discharged from the hospital after their condition improved, Abdel Ghaffar said.

The fishing boat, 'Badr al-Islam', was carrying at least 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. 

The South Sinai prosecutor ordered on Tuesday the detention of the captain of the Kuwaiti trade ship which crashed into the fishing, as well as 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.

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