Senegal to care for ferry orphans

Overloading and negligence caused the accident, an inquiry found

Senegal's parliament has passed a bill which would make the children of Africa's worst maritime disaster "orphans of the nation".

This would mean that about 1,900 children would enjoy free health care and education.

A BBC correspondent in Dakar says the new law comes four years after such promises were first made and do not take effect immediately.

The 2002 Joola ferry sinking claimed 1,863 lives - more than the Titanic.

The boat was sailing from Senegal's southern province of Casamance to the capital, Dakar, when it capsized in a storm off the Gambian coast.

Only 64 people survived.

Electoral ploy

Idrissa Diallo, head of one of the associations set up to help victims of the Joola tragedy, welcomed the new bill.

"It is a very good thing. Let's hope that it is applied very quickly," he told the AFP news agency.

In pictures: Senegal's new ferry

But the BBC's Tidiane Sy in Dakar says some suspect the law could be a ploy to win votes ahead of elections due early next year.

The Joola remains on the bottom of the ocean with some 1,000 victims still inside.

Many of the families are still waiting for promised compensation totalling some $30m. Many of those who died were schoolchildren returning to Dakar at the end of the summer holidays.

The ferry was carrying nearly four times as many people as it should have been when it went down off the Gambian coast.

An inquiry concluded that the accident had been caused by overloading and negligence on the part of the boat's operators, the Senegalese navy and rescue services.