Senegal marks 10th anniversary of deadly ferry disaster

DAKAR (AFP) - Victims' families gathered in cemeteries in north and south Senegal Wednesday to mourn those killed 10 years ago in one of the world's deadliest maritime disasters, the sinking of the Joola ferry.

The passenger ferry -- which provided a key link between the north and south in a country almost bisected by the long, narrow nation of Gambia -- went down in the Atlantic in a storm on the night of September 26, 2002.

The Joola was licensed to hold only 580 people, including crew, but was found to have been carrying well over 2,000 when it went down off the Gambian coast after setting sail from Ziguinchor in Senegal's southern Casamance region.

Just 64 people were rescued. The true number of victims has never been established. The Senegalese government says 1,863 people died, but victims' families say the real figure is 2,133.

A decade on, the tragedy still brings bitter memories for families who accuse the government of failing to deliver justice and keep its promises.

"Ten years later, the pain is still there, even more because many things have never been done," 22-year-old Maimouna Badji, who was orphaned by the disaster, told AFP.

"We wanted the ferry to be raised... (to) see the final resting place of the people we loved.

"But nothing has been done yet. We have nothing but this to remember," she said, pointing toward the graves containing unidentified victims at a cemetery in Mbao, on the outskirts of the capital Dakar.

About 500 recovered bodies were buried in mass graves, most unidentified, at four cemeteries.

Families in Ziguinchor went to the city's port, where they threw bouquets of flowers into the Casamance river, then laid a wreath at the foot of a commemorative marker nearby as hundreds of people looked on.

Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye was to lay a wreath of flowers Wednesday afternoon at Memory Square in Dakar, which faces the sea -- a site where victims' families are demanding a Joola museum and memorial be built.

As they have every year for a decade, victims' families also called for the government to provide money for orphans, haul the Joola to the surface and put officials on trial.

In 2003, authorities concluded that the captain, who died in the wreck, was the only person responsible. Overcrowding and poor maintenance were also blamed.

The same year, Senegal declared the case closed after several ministers and high-ranking military officers were fired, without it ever coming before a court.

Since then-president Abdoulaye Wade lost an election earlier this year to Macky Sall, victims' associations have been lobbying the new regime to reopen the case.

"We're still waiting on the Senegalese courts," Malang Badji, one of the survivors, told AFP. But the case "is on ice", he added.