- MB NewsParliament News
- December 7, 2009
- 9 minutes read
MB MP questions governments’ neglect of capsized ferries.
Dr. Abdel-Hamid Zaghloul, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc and Deputy for Edco and Rosetta; in an angry response to the catastrophe that took place in Rosetta(Rashid) with the 2 ferries which collided, made an emergency request to the people’s Assembly questioning the government on its neglect of responsibility
In a phone call with Ikhwanweb from the scene, the deputy said that the crisis has been ongoing and the Government has continued turning a blind eye on this fiasco that took place between the owners of these vessels. The ferries were operated by young boys despite possessing a motor-operated system. The ferries have continued to overboard passengers putting them in danger amid terrible silence from the Interior Ministry.
He announced his intention to make an urgent statement on the disaster, stressing the need to hold accountable those responsible for the disaster without delay and open an immediate investigation into the entire crisis that may cause other disasters because of the governments’ silence.
He also slammed the government’s exceedingly slow response in conducting rescue operations, adding that the “Government’s officials did not perform well and rescue forces lacked any kind of coordination. They arrived too late without bringing much of the required apparatus where relief and rescuing was limited to manual efforts, with the use of nets, hooks and other unsophisticated equipment such as lamps,”. To date, as reported by our correspondent in Rahsid nobody from the capsized ferry boat has yet been recovered.
Sources revealed that there is a real disaster awaiting the bodies; where most of the drowned bodies are expected to be ensnared in cages deployed in the Rosetta part of the Nile for fishing. This will undoubtedly cause a serious environmental disaster as the trapped fish will consume the bodies. It is also feared that some bodies floating in the river may wash into the Mediterranean Sea, which is ten kilometers away.