REMEMBERING THE JOOLA TRAGEDY
On the 26th of September 2022, The Joola which was a government-owned Senegalese ferry capsized off the coast of the Gambia killing over 1800 people and leaving 64 survivors. It’s recognised as the second worst non-wartime maritime disaster in world history, taking the lives of many more than the Infamous Titanic.
Despite the European Union granting the Senegal government Fund to raise the wreckage in 2005, they are still yet to raise the wreckage which lies in the depth of the sea. No one has ever been prosecuted, and the official report was closed a year after the disaster. This just speaks to how corruption and negligence have taken the position of accountability, transparency, and responsiveness in Africa as a whole.
What marvels me more apart from the incompetence of the Senegalese government in saving the victims is that the incident isn’t remembered as it ought to be despite the incident taking more lives than the Titanic. I would like to quote Pat Wiley an American who was one of those interviewed in the recent BBC Africa Joola documentary. He was a retired aerospace engineer who worked on the Apollo program and was also a sailor. He also spent over a decade Investigating the Joola tragedy.
“My knowledge about the Joola came from a small article that I read in the New York times, it was in the bottom corner, I almost missed the article. It was a mind-boggling article from the standpoint that it was written five months after the incident happened and of course, I wondered why it wasn’t the headline news. I looked the next day for follow-up articles, but they weren’t any. More people died than on the Titanic, yet it wasn’t news over here. It was a blatant example of the apathy that exists in this country and others too regarding third-world disasters and people of colour”.
I would like to reiterate that the world will only take Africa seriously when we start taking ourselves seriously. We owe it to our generation and the unborn to always document our story adequately to the world be it through movies, documentaries, or articles as this is the only way to remember and honor those who lost their lives in the incident which would also serve as solace to the survivors and victim families. The White man shouldn’t always be more concerned about our history than us.
Today, the 26th of September 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the Joola tragedy, you can watch the full documentary on YouTube. Props to BBC Africa for an insightful documentary.
