Egyptian boat (Photo: Al-Ahram)
A fishing boat carrying 14 Egyptian fishermen capsized in Sudanese territorial waters Saturday, the Egyptian foreign ministry has said.
Sudanese authorities were able to rescue two of the 14 fishermen, but 12 are still missing, according to a statement on the foreign ministry’s official Facebook page.
The rescued fishermen are currently being hospitalized in Sudan.
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who is in Addis Ababa for the African Union Summit, ordered a rescue boat from the Egyptian Navy Forces to move to Port Sudan to help search for the missing fishermen, MENA reported.
The president is following the incident and ordered that all necessary measures be taken to rescue the fishermen.
Egypt’s Consulate General in Port Sudan “does not rule out that some of the missing fishermen drifted to Eritrean shores” as the incident occurred close to the Sudanese-Eritrean borders, the statement said.
The foreign ministry is in contact with the Egyptian embassy in Asmara in Eritrea for updates on the missing Egyptians.
Scores of Egyptians have been detained, and later released, in Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the region for illegally crossing into their territorial waters to fish.
Egypt's foreign ministry has repeatedly issued warnings to fishermen against illegally entering neigbouring countries' waters.
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