Families of the victims for Mosul ferry gathered in Al-Jazira resort on Sunday calling on the Iraqi federal and local governments to morally and materially compensate them.
On March 21, 2019, a ferry capsized in Mosul carrying about three hundred people. 124 people were dead, mainly women and children and 60 went missing. The ferry was designed to carry 50 passengers, local sources earlier told KirkukNow.
The touristic ferry was carrying families to a tourist area on Jazirat Umm al-Rabaen in the Tigris River when it started to take on water and capsized.
The passengers on board, mainly women and children whom could not swim, were thrown into the river, which was swollen by heavy rainfall, and dragged by the strong current.
“The government should have been fair and brought those in charge into fair penalty,” said Mohammed Nour Sheat, brother of one of the victims. “Monthly salaries of those victims whom were state employees have been stopped since then in the excuse of pension procedures,” he added.
“The government should have been fair and brought those in charge into fair penalty,”
The ferry accident sparked protests by Mosul residents, who blamed negligence by the local government and demanded those in charge be held accountable. Nineveh appeal court issued an arrest warrant in March 2019 against the owner of the resort whom was arrested in Erbil Northern Province.
On March 24, 2019, the Iraqi parliament at the request of Iraqi former PM Adil Abdul-Mahdi decided to dismiss governor of Nineveh, Nawfal Hammadi al-Agub and his two deputies on charges of corruption, misuse of power and wasting public funds.
In mid-February, Iraqi criminal court to fight corruption issued two verdicts against former governor of Nineveh for imprisonment for five years for baseless projects, the Supreme Judiciary Council said in a statement.
Iraqi parliament speaker Mohammed al-Halboosi urged Iraqi parliament finance committee to allocate a budget to compensate relatives of the victims in 2021 draft budget to be ratifies soon as “fair compensation for families of the victims and consider them martyrs.”
Aziz al-Louisi, father of one of the victims, sobbed how local and federal government were derelict and careless for the souls of this passed away in the catastrophic accident. “The local government was not serious in looking for missing bodies and not resorting to experienced teams of divers to dig out the bodies from Tigris river two years following the incident.”
“The federal government was uncaring in giving financial aids and reparation for their losses,” he added.
Last body was found last January by Mosul civil defense in the Tigris river. Nineveh was slowly recovering from the war against the Islamic state ISIS jihadist group, which seized the city and almost one third of Iraq in 2014 for three years killing thousands of civilians and turning wide areas into ruins requiring billions to recover.
