AFM persists in search for missing boy at sea

The Armed Forces of Malta yesterday continued with their search for missing 11-year-old Theo Bugeja as fishermen remained ashore due to the strong winds.

The boy's father, Simon, the only survivor in the Simshar fishing tragedy which left three dead and the boy missing, is still recovering in hospital.

Fishing industry sources said Mr Bugeja, who will be 35 tomorrow, was recovering well, although he might need a skin graft because of burns to the back of his legs. He was transferred to the hospital's Burns Unit on Tuesday.

On board the Simshar when tragedy struck were, apart from Mr Bugeja and his son, Mr Bugeja's 61-year-old father Karmenu, 33-year-old Noel Carabott and 21-year-old Somali Abdulraham Abdala Gedi, who were all found dead.

The boat disappeared from the radar on July10 and was reported overdue two days later, when an extensive search by air and by sea kicked off.

The tragedy brings back memories of other disasters at sea, including the sinking of the yacht Esmeralda in June 1990. Only two of the four men on board were rescued, the other two never having been found.

The Esmeralda, owned by restaurateur Carol Calleja, had gone missing off the island of Serpentara, 20 miles southeast of Cagliari, on June 7 after its engines died as a result of flooding in the engine room. Mr Calleja was rescued three days later, together with Square Deal co-owner Emanuel Grech.

The search for former Chamber of Commerce president Wilfred Mamo, 56, and engineer John Schembri, 61, which continued for days, was futile.

The then-49-year-old Mr Calleja told The Times how the two survivors had recited the Rosary over and over again and spoke about their past as they drifted on a small rubber dinghy. They spent three sleepless nights, fearing being hit by some vessel, and although they could see land at one point, the changing wind meant that they soon started drifting away.

He also related how searching aircraft flew above them without spotting them. "Despair gripped us when we watched helicopters and aircraft flying overhead and they did not spot us," he said, soon after returning from Sicily where he and Mr Grech had been treated for dehydration and severe sunburn.

Six years earlier, five soldiers and two policemen died on the AFM patrol boat C-23, which exploded off Gozo.

The explosion happened on September 7, 1984, when the soldiers and the policemen were dumping illegally-manufactured fireworks into the sea. The fireworks had been seized in the limits of Żabbar the day before.

Only 21-year-old Emmanuel Montesin, from Paola, survived the explosion. He was in the wheelhouse when the explosion took place and steered the patrol boat in the direction of Comino.

In the mid-1970s the Queen of Peace, which was being used to carry cargo to North Africa, was lost in North African waters, also with the loss of Maltese lives.

Tragedy at sea also struck on October 30, 1948, when 23 people drowned after the fishing boat that was taking them from Malta to Gozo sank off Ħondoq ir-Rummien, in Qala. Only four survived.

According to reports, a fisherman accepted to take a number of Gozitans who wanted to return home for the long weekend and a Maltese man who was due to give a lecture in Gozo, while the Gozo ferry was not operating due to the bad weather. Although the fisherman initially wanted to leave the passengers at Ħondoq ir-Rummien, they protested and insisted he take them to Mġarr Harbour. The boat sank soon after.