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by Oka Budhi Yogaswara
MANADO, Indonesia, July 1 (AFP) - Hopes of finding an overloaded Indonesian ferry which disappeared with 500 people aboard, most of them refugees fleeing violence in the Maluku islands, were raised then dashed Saturday as the third day of a sea and air search ended without a trace of the vessel. The state Antara news agency said early in the afternoon that the wooden-hulled Cahaya Bahari (Ocean Light) had run aground on Siau, an island in the Sangir chain in the shark-infested Maluku Sea, and all aboard were safe. But Antara later retracted the report, saying the ship sighted was not the Cahaya Bahari, but another inter-island ferry with a similar name, the Cahaya Baru (New Light). "The result of the check proved that it's not Cahaya Bahari," the head of the national search and rescue service Setyo Raharjo was quoted as saying. "There was misinformation." An official of the emergency coordinating post here had also told AFP the reports were false. A senior port official in North Sulawesi, Musa Ering, said as darkness fell Saturday there was still no sign of the ship. "The search is continuing but up until now there's still no certainty on the ship's whereabouts," Ering told AFP by telephone from the Sangir island chain, on the northern tip of Sulawesi island. On Manado waterfront, hundreds of distraught people waited for yet another day for news of relatives on the ship. "I surrender the fate of my two children to God," one woman, who identified herself as Lina, told an AFP photographer. Meanwhile another refugee-packed ferry, the Athalia, made it safely to Manado Saturday afternoon from Tobelo. The Athalia took the same route from the island of Halmahera, wracked by violence between Christians and Muslims. The number of refugees aboard the Athalia was not known, but 15 wounded were among them. Four Indonesian navy warships and a helicopter were deployed on Saturday to search for the Cahaya Bahari, as the mystery deepened as to its fate and rescuers puzzled over the lack of shipwreck debris. "They have searched as far as Tahulandang Island and Salibabu (an island in the Talaud chain near the Philippines)," Ering told AFP. "If the Cahaya Bahari had sunk there must at least be life buoys drifting on the sea. It's strange. There isn't one sign that the ferry has sunk." An official at a Christian crisis center on Halmahera said that Muslims on Morotai Island in the Maluku chain might have taken the ship and passengers hostage. "We have no evidence yet. But if the ferry had sunk there must have been things or bodies found floating on the sea. The refugees brought with them many things, including bedding and lemons (which would float)," Heru Hiorumo told AFP. SCTV television channel, reporting from Manado, said the navy and rescue team would fly to Morotai to check the hostage report. But by sunset no news had been heard of that search. The Cahaya Bahari, which was carrying nearly twice as many people as it was authorized to hold, was traveling from Halmahera to Manado on the northern tip of Sulawesi. Shipping accidents with high human tolls are commonplace in Indonesia, the world's largest archipelagic nation. Many of the disasters are attributed to overloading. Halmahera has been the scene of some of the worst atrocities in the wave of Muslim-Christian violence that has plagued the Maluku islands for the past 18 months. Ering said communications with the Cahaya Bahari were lost on Thursday night, hours after the ship sent out a distress call. In its SOS, the ship reported its engines had shut down and the vessel was taking on water. Antara identified 38 of the passengers as walking wounded from the Christian village of Duma on Halmahera, where more than 100 people died last week in an attack by armed Muslim forces. Some 4,000 people have died in the violence since January 1999, more than 100 of them in recent days in the capital of Ambon. |
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