The Zanzibar Ferry Disaster: A Mzungu View

On Wednesday evening, I sat in the waterfront bar across the road from the dive shop having a cold beer watching the sun set over the Zanzibar Channel. A couple of ferries were moored on the beach by the palm trees. A dhow slowly sailed by taking fishermen out for the night shift. The nearest ferry was named the Spice Islander, such a romantic name with links to an exotic past, and the scene was near picture-postcard perfect. Two days later, the Spice Islander sank between Unjuga and Pemba, taking the lives of hundreds - mainly women and children. 

I don't know the details of what led to the disaster; I'm not sure that anybody knows the full story. The following summary has been pieced together from various internet and newspaper reports and word-of-mouth tales. The ferry left Dar Es Salaam, already overloaded. At Stone Town, more passengers and cargo were loaded and the ferry set sail for Pemba late on Friday evening. At about 1.00 in the morning, in strong currents with a failing engine, the ferry started to take in water, keeled over and started to sink about half way between Unjuga and Pemba - 20km from either shore. Some of those who could escape managed to cling to whatever was floating. The 200 life jackets were hopelessly inadequate, so foam mattresses were turned into impromptu rafts and refrigerators converted into makeshift canoes. Hundreds of people drifted in the dark, waiting to be rescued. Many others either could not escape the ferry or were left at the mercy of the ocean. 

The figures make for some horrific reading:

Number of passengers the ferry was authorised to carry: nil; 

Number of people on the “official” passenger list: 500; 

Number of people actually on board: unknown, but it is likely to be more than 1,000. 

The initial reports stated that there were 610 people on board. There is, though, deep mistrust of official bodies and nobody believed that this was the true figure. The latest official death toll now stands at 197, with 619 rescued. At 200 meters (the depth of the ocean where the ferry sank), there will be no survivors inside the ferry and I do not envy the South African divers whose job it will be to recover the bodies. There are reports of some survivors reaching Pemba on the strong currents. Bodies, bloated and probably half eaten by fish and crabs, will be washed up on the coast of the mainland and islands for months to come and reports have already started to come in of bodies being washed up in Mombassa. The government is likely to want to keep the numbers and stories under wraps - nothing spoils the images of pristine white beaches, and the tourism that they bring, like a corpse or two being washed ashore.  The final official figures will be the sum of the bodies, the survivors and, possibly, those reported missing but not found. The true number of those drowned will never be known. 

How was this allowed to happen? In truth, it was an accident waiting to happen. Every day at the beach by the dive shop, lines of up to five ferries are regularly stationed, with everything you can possibly imagine being loaded on board. There are no port duties here and the loading of the ferries is organised chaos, only without the organisation. There are reports that the boat owners had bribed the authorities three million shillings (around £1,200) to pass a safety test on the failing engine. The accident happened at the end of the Eid festival and many of those on board were children returning to Pemba following the festival to go back to school on Monday. The cargo ferries are the cheapest way of travelling between the islands and bribing crew members to gain passage is commonplace.

These are not isolated incidents and similar, though more fortunate, journeys will not have been uncommon. In this case, at the port in Stone Town, people were trying to get off the boat as it listed in the port, but the crew pulled up the ladder and set sail. As anybody who has travelled on a dala-dala will know, if Zanzibaris think that it is too crowded, then you can only imagine how dangerous it was and it seems to have been a distinct failing of the captain and port authorities to let the ferry start its trip.

I have only been on these islands for a short time, but the population is so small that everybody knows somebody who has been affected. I have friends that helped with the rescue efforts in Nungwi – the dive boats based there were some of the first on the scene and saved hundreds of lives. Others have been helping co-ordinate the disaster response and identification points in Stone Town. Friends at the dive school had family on the ferry. One had a younger brother who was among the survivors; his cousin wasn't so lucky. Another had several family members aboard and although he was working the day after the accident, he planned to head to Nungwi in search of news. One of the beach boys I know had neighbours and family on board - his family survived; his neighbours didn't. People are expecting bodies now, rather than survivors. In fact, I think people are now hoping for bodies, otherwise the remains of their friends and loved ones will remain in their watery graves.

The local TV stations (when not broadcasting Miss Tanzania, which itself shows a shocking lack of sensitivity and prioritisation from the network) provided on-the-spot reports. The reports were harrowing: close up shots of the dead, some having their eyelids closed on screen, and then a number placed over the covered body to help identification. This approach and use of the media in this way epitomises the matter-of-fact response to the disaster that is evident everywhere. Pole sana (Swahili for “I’m very sorry”) has become a staple of conversation everywhere you go. It seems so inadequate, but it is accepted as intended and everybody is responding to the tragedy with remarkable stoicism.

Many are finding comfort in their faith and, generally speaking, there has been very little anger (and fewer tears, at least in public). The Muslims take solace in that the events of the past few days are what “Allah has written”. I come from a scientific background and I don’t know how healthy such a view is, but it is clear that it helps relieve the pain of the tragedy and provides answers where there are none. However, if believing in a pre-determined future means that there is no challenge to the authorities, the ship owners, the captain and everybody who has a degree of responsibility for the disaster, then it may mean that more tragedies will happen in the future – tragedies that would be preventable if some changes take place.

The disaster has brought the community of Zanzibar even closer together. It is heart-warming to see the response of everybody pulling together, people put the collective good before individual needs. (Although, it has to be said, there are exceptions to this and tales of 

looters sailing past people stranded on mattresses to salvage anything that can be used or sold is an act of inhumanity that I still find difficult to believe.) There has been a three-day period of mourning declared on the island, after which everything will return to normal. Life goes on. My fear is that it will go on without any real change in attitude and I expect that, within a month, chaos will be the norm and ferries will continue to be overloaded with people taking advantage of the slack regulations for a cheap journey


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“T.I.A.” is a frequent response from mzungu and expats to the challenges and problems of daily life here, from daily power cuts to bartering for everything at the markets. TIA: This is Africa. This is Africa and I hope it retains its identity without trying to mirror the (materially) wealthier continents. More often than not, western societies display a distorted sense of values and the sense of community and togetherness on view in Zanzibar (which was evident before the tragedy, but even more so now) is something that should be cherished.

TIA: where regulations are little more than guidelines to be followed if they are not too inconvenient. There is a one-way system in Stone Town, but everybody knows which of those one-way streets are used in both directions. A beep of the horn or flash of headlights is enough to tell oncoming traffic that you are coming around the blind bend. In many ways, being unshackled from the red tape and health and safety madness back home is liberating, but there are some areas which need safety to be a priority (or at least a consideration) and I hope that this tragedy instils some awareness of this. TIA: but when this means that the lives of innocents are lost, some things have to change.