The death toll from a boat carrying undocumented migrants that sank off Egypt’s northern coast earlier this week has risen to 51, a local official said Friday.
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Mohammed Sultan, the governor of Egypt’s coastal Beheira province, provided the latest death toll and said that dozens more are still feared dead.
Up to 600 people may have been on board the appallingly overloaded people-traffickers’ boat that capsized and sank just eight miles off the port of Rosetta in the Nile Delta on Wednesday evening. Numerous dead are women and children who were unable to swim away when the boat sank.
“18 more bodies were retrieved as at this afternoon, bringing the number of victims to 162”. He said the boat may now have sunk to 16 meters (yards) below sea level.
The Egyptian police informed on four crew members have been arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and human trafficking.
Survivors said that overcrowding caused the boat to capsize. Egypt’s state Radio reported that 163 people have been rescued, ” he said.
At a small pier called Borg, hundreds of families had gathered Friday, hoping to identify the bodies of loved ones. Women screamed and relatives pushed and shoved while swarming the ambulances heading to the hospital.
Mutubas district Mayor Abdul Sattar said security forces and fishermen have recovered the bodies.
He said he arrived at 11 a.m.in the morning and helped the survivors.
“That’s why this is a disaster”, said police spokesman Tarek Attiya. Some of the interviewees said the traffickers asked for $6,250 per family, to be paid on arrival in Italy.
The incident came as the EU’s border agency warned that increasing numbers of Europe-bound migrants are using Egypt as a departure point.
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Those who chose to risk the risky journey often are fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere.
