SOPHIE'S STORY: THE SECOND-WORST NON-MILITARY MARITIME DISASTER
By adamgreenwell
Sat, 02 Apr 2016
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Image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Le_Joola_at_Ziguinchor_1991.jpg?...
September 26, 2002.
The Senegalese ferry MV Le Joola capsizes off the coast of Gambia, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,863 people.
The RMS Titanic capsized in 1912 with the loss of 1,517 lives.
In 1987, the MV Dona Paz capsized in the Philippines with an estimated number of over 4,000 dead.
The Titanic is the most famous of these three maritime disasters with the greatest ever loss of life. Such losses in all cases affect the families and communities left behind with the agony of universal pain and grief.
At the same time, unfinished business and unresolved conflict can thwart the grieving process.
Sophie’s story is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Dona Paz, the Le Joola and the Titanic, in the hope that a common experience of loss might draw together a common humanity – to ensure the maritime safety of all waterways, all ocean going vessels, everywhere - and reinforce that sense of universal kinship we call the human family.
The Le Joola, named after the Jola people of Senegal, would sail between Ziguinchor, Senegal’s second city; and Dakar, the capital.
The distance between the cities is just under 270 kilometers. However, a civil war saw most people opting for the safer option of ferry travel, especially those hoping to sell mangoes and palm oil in the markets of Dakar. This led to serious overcrowding in a ship whose flat-bottom and capacity for only 600 people were no match for the boisterous waves and heavy rainstorm, flashing from nowhere, during the middle of an otherwise peaceful night journey.
Built in Germany, Le Joola was not designed for voyages on the high-seas. Only 64 survived, including just one woman who was pregnant, following the valiant rescue efforts of fishermen.
An official rescue team was not assembled until the next morning.
My friend Sophie relates her personal story:
Dear Adam,
I’m going to talk right now about something very difficult for me and I confess I’m afraid about the emotions I’m feeling writing this article.
I’m going to talk about the day that changed my whole life. So what I’ll ask to those who will read this article is to read me with the heart, as well as I’m expecting you to do the same. I’m the only girl and youngest child of a family of three and so, I’ve always been protected by my brothers especially my older one. His name’s was Abdoulaye DIAW and we used to call him Bébé Diaw because of his kindness and because of the way he cherished those he loved…his friends, his family, especially me and my mother. We had kind of a special relationship that made us act as if we were connected. The Joola’s tragedy happened on September 26th 2002 and I saw my brother for the last 1week ago. Two days before this tragedy I felt in myself that something wrong will happen. I was sad and nervous without any reason, crying without any reason.
I will never forget this afternoon of September 26th when I was preparing to go to visit one of my friends. I can see my mother coming into my room without knocking on the door and collapse as if she had vertigo…and repeating the same words “My son…where’s my son? I want my son…” Less than an hour later, I realized I was facing a mother who lost her child but strong enough to help her only daughter and youngest child to face the reality of the loss of one of the most important men of her life…her brother, her best friend, her all.
For the first time, since September 2002, I’m writing about my story, about my brother’s story and also about a story that deeply moved the life of a thousand individuals, not only in Senegal, but also in the whole world.
I can’t talk about the first time I saw the ship after this disaster…because it is still in the sea. Senegalese authorities did not do the effort to resurface the ship, pleading the cause of emotional shock… But what do they know about what we are feeling, as the victims’ family? How can they plead for emotional shock when they themselves decided to let people in the sea for hours when they receive the message about the ship sinking? How can they talk about emotional shock when anyone of those who did not take their responsibility had not got punished for this?
Today, for sure everything is done by the government to avoid such a tragedy happens again…no boat overload…strict observations of the rules for the new ship “Aline Sitoe Diatta”, but no way for me to take a ship again in my life. Today even though prescriptions are followed, the more I write, the more I feel sad and angry. I’m angry not only for the loss of my brother, but also for the loss of approximatively 2000 people (young people, women, children, men and so on…)…much more then the Titanic’s tragedy but I guess the pain is the same.
I’m angry and I cry for each of these 2000 people, for each family, for each mother, for each child, for each woman…and I’m also feeling a deep pain for those, like me, who stayed here, who did not have the possibility to say how much they love and care for their brother, their mom or their dad or their best friend, just because they thought they had the entire life to do so.
Or just because of little quarrel decided they would not wish to the beloved a happy birthday, mainly because they thought they would do it the next year…as I did, as I thought. Today my pain is deeper than in 2002…11 years later, I’m still suffering from each part of myself and I have nowhere to go to stand on my brother’s grave, because as many people who suffered of the loss of their beloved ones in this ship, we did not find his corpse. I just speak to him with my heart, carrying him in my heart everywhere I go, so that he knows about my joys and my pains…with the difference that never ever in my life I will hear again his voice saying “Mom leave my sister alone…she has to do her own mistakes to learn about the reality of life…LET HER LIVE!”
But as long as I won’t be able to get through his loss, I won’t be able TO LIVE as he wanted me to do so…definitely I lost the most important part of myself when I lost him…I’m dead somehow…trying to keep my heart alive because it’s the only way for me to keep him ALIVE.
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