Crew Made Threat, Ferry Survivor Says

A survivor of East Africa’s worst shipping disaster said Thursday that crew members threatened to throw passengers overboard when they wanted to dump the doomed ferry’s cargo of bananas into Lake Victoria.

Officials, survivors and witnesses cited a series of errors before and after the capsizing of the MV Bukoba on Tuesday, killing more than 500 people.

The first foreign divers and special cutting equipment arrived in the lake port of Mwanza in the effort to retrieve the bodies of the hundreds of people who drowned and were believed still trapped in the ferry that sank in the world’s second-largest lake.

Survivors said the Belgian-built ship was clearly overloaded and swayed for hours before it eventually capsized. They said there were too few life jackets and that passengers fought for them.

“I lost five friends and my brother-in-law,” said Ashif Mohamed, a 32-year-old businessman picked up three hours after the ferry capsized.

He said many passengers were very worried and wanted to throw some of the ship’s heavy cargo of bananas into the lake, but crew members threatened to throw them overboard if they did so.

Mohamed, who watched rescue workers cut holes in the hull of the overturned ferry Tuesday, confirmed other accounts that the initial rescue efforts went horribly wrong and apparently sank the Bukoba.

About 3,000 people waited at Mwanza’s port for news of their relatives. Witnesses said three bloated corpses were recovered Thursday, bringing the number found to 28.