Ferry Victims' Relatives Riot at Ship Offices

It has been reported that hundreds of grieving relatives attacked offices belonging to the owners of a Red Sea ferry which sank with 1400 people on board. Rioters threw furniture into the street and burned the company's signboard. Police had to be called to intervene and fire tear gas to restore order after the mob broke into the offices of El Salam Maritime in the Red Sea port early in the morning and began throwing everything out into the street. The company owned the Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 which sank early on Friday with the loss of about 1000 lives. The rioters took a large photo of one of the company's ferries and burned it in the middle of the road. Riot police who were guarding the nearby port gates quickly dispersed the crowd. Some rioters set fires to tyres on roads leading to the port, effectively closing the roads. But firefighters arrived and extinguished the blazes. Only 401 people are known to have survived the sinking of the ferry. Most of the passengers were low-income Egyptians returning from working in Saudi Arabia. Relatives of the passengers have complained that the firm failed to inform them about who had drowned and who had survived. source: CBC News