Death toll in Senegal ferry tragedy grows

THE death toll from Senegal’s ferry disaster could top 1,000 after President Abdoulaye Wade conceded yesterday that children under five would have gone un-ticketed – and thus apparently uncounted in the death toll.

“It might happen the definitive number is over 1,034,” President Wade told CNN. “There will be prosecutions, of course,” he said.

Today 970 of 1,034 reported aboard the state-run MS Joola were confirmed dead or missing and presumed dead.

In Germany the shipyard Neue Germersheimer Schiffswerft that built the ferry for Senegal in 1990 confirmed the vessel had been designed for 536 passengers and 64 crew. That’s nearly half the number Senegal says was aboard at the time of the disaster.

The MS Joola was in the Atlantic more than a dozen nautical miles off the former British colony of Gambia when it tumbled into the waves in a fierce gale just before midnight last Thursday.

Divers at the scene said many victims survived several hours after the boat capsized. They were screaming for help and fighting for air. “When I dove in, I saw bodies everywhere,” many huddled near air pockets, said Haidar el Ali whose 16-diver team took 17 hours to arrive by boat from Dakar.