The ship that sank off the coast of Greece
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Two days after the sinking of the “Raptor” off the coast of Greece, the head of the Syndicate of Egyptian Maritime Officers has revealed new details about this salt-laden merchant ship that disappeared the day before yesterday morning, Sunday, with 14 people on board, of which 13 were missing and one survived.
Captain Al-Sayed Al-Shazly Al-Najjar, head of the union, told Al Arabiya.net that the Egyptian authorities informed him of the death of all the sailors missing in the accident, all from the Ezbet Al-Burj area . in the Governorate of Damietta, in the north of the country. He added that the search for their bodies is currently underway to recover them.
Captain Chadli Al-Najjar, president of the naval officers’ union
Full of bugs
He further explained that “there are doubts and suspicions about the accident which push to open an urgent investigation into the disaster”, underlining that the ship left on Tuesday 21 November from the port of Dekheila, west of Alexandria, with the name La “Rovana ” of the shipping company “Clarkson”, after having entered under the name Raptor last October 1st at the same agency, is dilapidated, has many holes and holes, and is full of malfunctions in the appliances and machinery.
He also believed that the ship had hoisted the Comoros flag to circumvent Egyptian laws. It added that its holds were filled with more than 6,000 tonnes of salt, which was a thousand tonnes more than the total cargo, even though documents showed that it had left with only 4,000 tonnes, which threatened the safety of the ship and crew in direction and control.
Captain of the sinking ship
Did they intentionally drown her?!
Furthermore, the head of the Egyptian Maritime Officers’ Union accused the owners of the ship of deception and of having transported it with a load and capacity greater than the actual ones in the hope of sinking it and obtaining compensation of hundreds of thousands of dollars, underlining that the same This had already happened to two previous ships of the same owner, and they suffered the same fate, stating that “the first sank” near the port of Abu Qir, and the second sank off the coast of Libya.
Photo of the sole survivor
He also revealed that the shipowner owns another vessel that is currently facing the same fate in the Mediterranean, having asked it, as he had asked the previously sunk vessel, to advance and proceed despite bad weather conditions. However, he explained that the ship’s captain refused to move out of concern for the safety of the ship’s crew.
The head of the Maritime Officers’ Union has asked the Egyptian Ministry of Transport and the Maritime Safety Authority to open an urgent investigation into the accident and to declare the shipowner responsible.
Social media pioneers shared a video of the moment the cargo ship sank off the coast of Greece last Sunday morning. The video revealed moments of water seeping into the ship and voices of the command crew sending distress signals.
Meanwhile, information obtained by Al-Arabiya.net showed that the vessel suffered a water leak from inside the day before the accident, as the boat’s crew tried to empty the water to no avail, after which the ship began to steer left and right. before she sank and crew members jumped out in an attempt to survive.
Interestingly, this Comoros-flagged “salt ship” was lost 4.5 miles off the Greek coast of Lesbos, after leaving the Egyptian port of Dekheila, loaded with salt, bound for the port of Constantinople in Turkey. There were 14 people on board, including Egyptians from the Ezbet El-Burj area of Damietta Governorate.