Six decades on, MV Dara’s bombing off Dubai remains an enduring horror

The MV Dara, a 120-meter, 5,000-ton ship was a familiar sight in Dubai and around the Gulf. (Shutterstock)
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Updated 09 April 2021
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Six decades on, MV Dara’s bombing off Dubai remains an enduring horror

  • A suitcase bomb explosion aboard the vessel off Dubai killed 238 people, most of them Arabs, Indians and Pakistanis
  • British investigators later concluded that an anti-tank mine caused the blast that destroyed the passenger ship

LONDON: During the night of April 8, 1961, 11-year-old Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the future ruler of Dubai, was awoken by the sound of a ferocious storm battering the royal palace.

As a child, he had heard the elders of his grandfather’s generation recall phenomenal storms of such savagery that they likened them to the Day of Judgement.

But, as Sheikh Mohammed wrote in his autobiography “My Story” in 2019, “I didn’t pay much heed to their prophetic, doom-laden words.”

That is until that April night in 1961 when “I found my bed in the middle of a full-blown storm, with windows slamming in the gale-force winds that were blowing through our family home … It seemed like the world was ending all around me, what some other cultures call the end of days.”

It was, he wrote, “the beginning of a seemingly endless night,” during which large numbers of his father’s subjects, many of them injured and rendered homeless by the storm, sought sanctuary at the palace.

Outside, Sheikh Mohammed recalled, “there was heavy destruction, with palm trees flying through the air like toys, many houses damaged or utterly destroyed, and fishing boats tossed into the streets of the city. Many families suffered death or injury that night.”

And then, just when it seemed that things could not get any worse, they did. Out on the storm-swept sea, dozens were losing their lives — not to nature’s fury, but at the hands of a ruthless human killer.

Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Rashid had organized men to go out into the streets to help where they could, and to help staff at Al-Maktoum Hospital cope with the waves of injured who were pouring in.

And then, recalled Sheikh Mohammed, “arrived news that froze my father where he stood. British soldiers rushed past the door, scarcely catching their breath. They shouted, ‘Your Highness! There’s a fire on the Dara!’ The world seemed to stand still.”

The MV Dara, a 120-meter, 5,000-ton ship was a familiar sight in Dubai and around the Gulf. Owned by the British India Steam Navigation Co., it was one of four similar ships that for the past decade or more had provided a regular service for cargo and passengers to and from Bombay (now Mumbai) via ports around the Gulf.




The Dara was one of four similar ships that for the past decade or more had provided a regular service for cargo and passengers to and from Bombay, now Mumbai. (File Photo)

The Dara had left Mumbai on March 23 and, after calling at Karachi, Muscat, Dubai, Doha, Bahrain, Kuwait, Khorramshahr, Abadan and Basra, had returned to Dubai on April 7. On board were around 560 passengers and 132 crew.

The ship was anchored off the creek, with small boats ferrying passengers and cargo to and from the shore, when in the afternoon the weather began to deteriorate rapidly.

At about 5:30 p.m., after the Dara was clipped by a nearby cargo ship that had dragged its anchor in the rising seas, Capt. Charles Elson made the decision to put out to sea and ride out the storm in the relative safety of open water.

It was a fateful decision for the approximately 128 dock workers, officials, tradesmen and friends of passengers who had come aboard in Dubai and were unable to disembark before the ship sailed away to weather the storm. In all, about 820 souls were on board that night.




The Dara had left Mumbai on March 23 and, after calling at Karachi, Muscat, Dubai, Doha, Bahrain, Kuwait, Khorramshahr, Abadan and Basra, had returned to Dubai on April 7, 1961. (File Photo)

After the storm began to ease at about 4 a.m. the next morning, the Dara started its return to Dubai. She never made it.

Forty-three minutes later, a terrific explosion in an alleyway on the portside upper deck shook the ship.

“This explosion was of considerable violence,” reported the official inquiry into the tragedy, carried out in London in March and April 1962.

“It blew a semi-circular hole about 6ft wide and 4ft high in the engine-room casing, which separated the engine room from this alleyway; a rather larger hole was blown in the bulkhead on the port side; in the deck above there was a hole about 4ft in diameter ... fire immediately broke out, there was heavy smoke; all electric power was cut off, the steering gear was put out of action and the pipes in the vicinity of the explosion were ruptured.”

Many passengers and even crew panicked, crowding into lifeboats “with a considerable quantity of luggage” even before the call came to abandon ship. Of the six lifeboats launched, two capsized with loss of life.

In “My Story,” Sheikh Mohammed painted a vivid picture of the horror that unfolded as nearby ships, Dubai fishermen and others rushed to the Dara’s aid.

“More than 800 passengers were on board the sinking ship,” he wrote. “The soldiers said that many were killed immediately, but more passengers were dying every minute as they crowded to escape — some crushed to death, others drowning in the raging waters.”

(Then) arrived news that froze my father where he stood. British soldiers rushed past the door, scarcely catching their breath. They shouted, ‘Your Highness! There’s a fire on the Dara!’ The world seemed to stand still.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum

Overloaded lifeboats “were capsizing in the middle of the sea and the strong winds were scattering the boats in all directions.”

At the palace, “we gathered our relatives and a large number of Dubai residents in our home. My father sent all our family, without exception, with lifeboats to try to save anyone they could. We were able to rescue about 500 people that night — a night I thought would never end; one of horror, violence and terrible human tragedy.”

The crippled, burnt-out Dara stayed afloat for two more days before finally capsizing and sinking as she was towed back to Dubai. Today, she lies on her side about 8 km offshore.




The Dubai Voluntary Diving Team has worked with the Department of Tourism and Archaeology in Umm Al Qaiwain over ten months to complete phase one of the excavation of the ship, Dara, by cleaning debris from the location where the ship sank. (Emirates News Agency)

In interviews with this writer a decade ago, survivors and relatives of those who had been on the ship told of the horror of that night.

John Soares, then a 23-year-old deputy purser from Goa, recalled being thrown by the blast from his cabin bunk on the main deck. “I found total confusion on the deck,” he said. “I could see a gaping hole with fire coming out of it.”

Even as he tried to get passengers to put on lifejackets, many leapt into the rough seas without them.

“They were not listening to anybody, they were in a world of their own,” he said. “It was terrible, total panic.”

Decades after the tragedy, he remained haunted by the events of that night — the sight of many of those who jumped breaking their necks upon impact with the water, and the horror of witnessing mothers desperate to save their babies from the flames engulfing the ship, instead throwing them to certain death in the sea.

Many people in the region remain affected by the tragedy. Raja Qaiser of Islamabad, born 12 years after the sinking, recalled how his family still mourned its “lost children” — the four sisters Latifa, 17, Shoib, 7, Jamela, 5 and Hafeza, 3 months — who died on the ship with their mother Maqsood.

As a child, Qaiser would often hear his father Raja, who was not on the ship and who died in 1987 aged 70, speaking of his lost children. Until the end of his life, “he believed they had survived. He would not let anyone cry.”




After the storm began to ease at about 4 a.m. the next morning, the Dara started its return to Dubai. She never made it. (File Photo)

After the tragedy, which affected so many families around the Gulf, the hunt began for what caused the blast.

In 1957, Britain had intervened in an increasingly bitter war between the sultan of Oman and rebel tribespeople. The conflict reached a turning point in 1959 when British special forces and RAF bombers delivered a series of decisive blows against the rebels, in what became known as the Jebel Akhdar War.

The uprising had been crushed, but for a while insurgents continued to plant landmines in Oman, hitting military and civilian vehicles.

In 1962, a special court convened in Britain under the terms of the 1894 Merchant Shipping Act considered the evidence for 15 days and concluded that an explosive — probably a landmine — had been “practically certainly, deliberately placed in the vessel by a person or persons unknown.”

Sir John Hobson, the solicitor general, told the inquiry that the explosion had been a “deliberate and wicked act” of sabotage, the work of Omani rebels.

The explosion, reported the inquiry, had caused “an instantaneous fire which spread with extreme rapidity.”

The deaths had resulted “partly from the explosion itself and partly from the extremely rapid spread of the fire, which asphyxiated an unknown number of persons and prevented the launching of the majority of the lifeboats.”

Evidence was given to the inquiry by British Royal Navy divers who had been sent down to examine the wreck of the Dara.

They had concluded that “there seemed little doubt that the explosion was caused by a high-explosive of approximately the type and quantity used in an anti-tank mine ... detonated deliberately, probably by a detonator with a time device.”

No group claimed responsibility for the blast and no one was ever charged with having carried it out, but numerous suspects were arrested and interrogated by the British.

Sir John de Silva, first secretary of the British Political Residency in Bahrain, told the inquiry that a prominent member of the rebel group had “admitted that the explosion had been caused by his colleagues.”

The unofficial conclusion reached was that the bomb had been intended to go off at Muscat in Oman, the Dara’s next scheduled port of call.

Hidden in a suitcase, the explosives may have been smuggled on board at Dubai by an insurgent or insurgents who had traveled overland to the port from Oman.

In a final twist of fate brought about by a storm of the type likened by the elders of Dubai to the Day of Judgement, the bomber may have been trapped on board when the Dara’s skipper raised anchor and sailed into open water to weather the storm. And, quite possibly, he was among the dead.

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Twitter: @JonathanGornall


After PKK move, healing Turkiye-Kurd ties needs ‘paradigm shift’: Ocalan

Updated 19 May 2025
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After PKK move, healing Turkiye-Kurd ties needs ‘paradigm shift’: Ocalan

  • Ocalan is unlikely to be freed, as his life would likely come under threat, but the conditions of his imprisonment are likely to be “eased,” officials say

ISTANBUL: A “major” shift is needed to repair broken ties between the Turkish state and the country’s Kurdish minority following the historic decision of the Kurdistan Workers Party to disarm, its jailed founder said Sunday.
The message from Abdullah Ocalan was transmitted through a delegation of the pro-Kurdish DEM party who visited the Imrali prison island near Istanbul where Ocalan has been serving life in solitary confinement since 1999.
It was their first visit since the May 12 disarmament announcement, which sought to draw a line under conflict that began in 1984 when the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) took up arms. More than 40,000 people have died since.
“What we are doing involves a major paradigm shift,” wrote the 76-year-old former guerrilla.
“The Turkish-Kurdish relationship is like a brotherly relationship that is broken. Brothers and sisters fight, but they can’t exist without each other,” he said, calling for “a new agreement based on the concept of brotherhood.”
“We must clear away, one-by-one, all the traps and minefields that spoil this relationship, we must repair the broken roads and bridges.”
Only DEM lawmaker Pervin Buldan visited Ocalan this time, with lawyer Ozgur Erol, following the recent death of veteran Turkish peacemaker Sirri Sureyya Onder.
Onder, who was Turkiye’s deputy parliamentary speaker, died on May 3, after suffering a cardiac arrest and just days before the PKK’s historic decision.
He had spent years trying to end the conflict with Turkiye’s Kurdish minority in efforts that earned respect from across the political spectrum.
Since December, he had been part of a delegation that visited Ocalan several times, shuttling messages between him and Turkiye’s political establishment and paving the way for the PKK move.
“I had a hankering to speak to Sirri Sureyya Onder one last time,” Ocalan wrote, describing him as “a wise person for Turkiye” and saying he left behind “a cherished memory that we need to keep alive.”
The government has said it will carefully monitor the disarmament process and in turn, observers expect the government to show a new openness to the Kurds who make up about 20 percent of the 85 million population.
Ocalan is unlikely to be freed, as his life would likely come under threat, but the conditions of his imprisonment are likely to be “eased,” officials say.


Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after nearly 3 months of blockade

Updated 18 May 2025
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Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after nearly 3 months of blockade

  • Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free hostages from Gaza but not necessarily end the war

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israel says it will allow a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza after a nearly three-month blockade to avoid a “hunger crisis,” after global experts on food crises warned of famine.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his Cabinet approved a decision to allow a “basic” amount of food into the territory of over 2 million people. Israel imposed a complete blockade on humanitarian aid starting March 2.
Netanyahu said allowing some aid in would enable Israel to expand its new military operation, which began Saturday.
It was not immediately clear when aid would enter Gaza, or how. Netanyahu said Israel would work to ensure that Hamas will not control aid distribution and ensure the aid does not reach Hamas militants.
Earlier on Sunday, Israel launched “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza. Airstrikes in its new offensive killed at least 103 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said. The bombardment forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close as it reported direct strikes.
Israel began the offensive — the largest since it shattered a ceasefire in March — with the aim of seizing territory and displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free hostages from Gaza but not necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a path to ending the war as part of any deal.
“When the Jews want a truce, Hamas refuses, and when Hamas wants a truce, the Jews refuse it. Both sides agree to exterminate the Palestinian people,” said Jabaliya resident Abu Mohammad Yassin, who was among those fleeing the new offensive on foot or in donkey carts. “For God’s sake, have mercy on us. We are tired of displacement.”
Israel’s military, which recently called up tens of thousands of reservists, said the ground operations are throughout the Palestinian territory’s north and south. Israel’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said that plans include “dissecting” the strip.
Before the announcement, airstrikes killed more than 48 people — including 18 children and 13 women — in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, which said it struggled to count the dead because of the condition of bodies.
In northern Gaza, a strike on a home in Jabaliya killed nine members of a family, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency services. Another strike on a residence there killed 10, including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
Israel’s military had no immediate comment. Its statement announcing the ground operations said preliminary strikes over the past week killed dozens of militants and struck more than 670 targets. Israel blames civilian casualties on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas.
Shortly afterward, Israel’s military said that it intercepted a projectile from central Gaza and another fell in an open area, with no injuries reported.
Talks in Qatar
Israel had said it would wait until the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East before launching its offensive, saying it was giving ceasefire efforts a chance. Trump didn’t visit Israel on his trip that ended Friday.
Netanyahu’s office said his negotiating team in Qatar was “working to realize every chance for a deal,” including one that would end fighting in exchange for the release of all remaining 58 hostages, Hamas’ exile from Gaza and the disarmament of the territory.
Hamas has refused to leave Gaza or disarm.
Israel ended the previous eight-week ceasefire in March. Gaza’s Health Ministry has said almost 3,000 people have been killed since then.
Days before resuming the war, Israel cut off all food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza. The blockade is now in its third month, with global food security experts warning of famine across the territory.
Frustration in Israel has been rising. A small but growing number of Israelis are refusing to show up for military service, even risking imprisonment. Other Israelis have been displaying photos of children killed in Gaza during weekly rallies demanding a deal to free all hostages and end the war.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Hospital cites Israeli ‘siege’
Health officials said fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” prompted it to shut down. It was the main medical facility in the north after Israeli strikes last year forced the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoun hospitals to stop offering services.
“There is direct targeting on the hospital, including the intensive care unit,” Indonesian Hospital director Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan said in a statement, adding that no one could reach the facility that had about 30 patients and 15 medical staff inside.
Israel’s military said that troops were operating against militant infrastructure sites in northern Gaza, including the area “directly adjacent” to the hospital.
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals, accusing Hamas of being active in and around the facilities. Human rights groups and UN-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
In northern Gaza, at least 43 people were killed in strikes, according to first responders from the Health Ministry and civil defense. Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said 15 children and 12 women were among the dead.
A drone strike Sunday afternoon killed at least seven Palestinians near a school sheltering displaced people northwest of Gaza City, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service.
Other strikes in central Gaza killed at least 12 people, hospitals said. One in Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah.
In Gaza City, Um Mahmoud Al-Aloul lay across the shrouded body of her daughter, Nour Al-Aloul.
“You took my soul with you,” she cried. “I used to turn off my phone from how much you called.”


Egypt recovers antiquities smuggled to Australia: ministry

Updated 18 May 2025
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Egypt recovers antiquities smuggled to Australia: ministry

  • Officials say Egypt has successfully retrieved around 30,000 smuggled artefacts over the past decade

CAIRO: Egypt’s antiquities ministry said Sunday it had retrieved 21 artefacts, including a funerary figurine and an eye of Horus amulet, that had been smuggled illegally to Australia.
Most of the items had been “on display at a renowned auction house in Australia, before it became clear that there were no proper ownership documents,” Supreme Council of Antiquities chief Mohamed Ismail Khaled said.
The collection, which also included a fragment of a wooden sarcophagus, was handed over to the Egyptian embassy in Canberra.
Officials did not say how or when the pieces had been smuggled out of the country.
Such thefts are not uncommon, however.
During the 2011 uprising that ousted Egypt’s longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak, looters ransacked museums and archaeological sites, spiriting away thousands of priceless pieces.
Many of the stolen artefacts later appeared on the international market or ended up in private collections.
Officials say Egypt has successfully retrieved around 30,000 smuggled artefacts over the past decade.
Six years ago, the country’s embassy in Australia also received a long-lost fourth and final part of a stone stela dating back to the fourth century BC.
The stela, or information slab, disappeared from an excavation site in Luxor in 1995.
Known as the Sheshn Nerfertem stela, it was smuggled in pieces to Switzerland, from where three pieces were repatriated in 2017.
The now-complete stela, and the artefacts repatriated from Australia, are now “at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir for restoration in preparation for display in a temporary exhibition,” the antiquities ministry said.


Beirut’s choice: Prime minister urges citizens to shape their city’s future

PM Nawaf Salam inspected the central operations room overseeing the electoral process at the Ministry of Interior.
Updated 18 May 2025
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Beirut’s choice: Prime minister urges citizens to shape their city’s future

  • Fierce contest as Lebanon holds the third round of municipal and mayoral elections

BEIRUT: Lebanon held the third round of municipal and mayoral elections on Sunday.

Sunday’s vote was held in the governorates of Beirut, Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam inspected the central operations room overseeing the electoral process at the Ministry of Interior and across various electoral centers in Beirut.

Defense Minister Michel Menassa and Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar accompanied him.

After casting his ballot in Beirut, Salam said that the elections provided an opportunity for citizens to express their true wishes for the city and voiced hope for a high voter turnout.

He stated that the people of Beirut should not miss the chance to decide what kind of city they want.

“I urge them to participate in the elections in large numbers.”

Salam affirmed that the people of Beirut “are capable of ensuring representation for everyone in the municipal council.”

He said that the new municipal council is not obligated to support the government’s efforts; instead, it is the government’s responsibility to meet all the needs of the people of Beirut.

He added: “This is a developmental choice par excellence.”

In an afternoon appeal, Salam repeated his call for voters to cast their ballots, stating that the voter turnout in Beirut remained low.

MPs supporting the parties’ list in Beirut expressed concern about the low turnout during the day.

Security and military forces deployed personnel to assure the safety of polling stations and the routes leading to them.

The Lebanese Army Command announced that an army unit in Baalbek and the Douris area arrested four people found in possession of combat pistols, a quantity of hashish, and captagon pills.

In an official statement, the Army Command warned citizens “against creating trouble, firing guns, and endangering the lives of others.”

It also suspended “all gun licenses in the governorates where elections are being held for 48 hours,” stressing that it “will not hesitate to pursue and arrest all those who disrupt security across all Lebanese territory.”

During the voting process, Israeli reconnaissance planes flew over Beirut.

As the southern governorates and Nabatieh prepare for the final round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, an Israeli drone targeted a Rapid car on Sunday on Beit Yahoun Road near a Lebanese army checkpoint, wounding the driver and a soldier manning the checkpoint.

Sunday’s elections were described as “fierce,” with intense competition between political party lists and civil society.

Voters extensively crossing out party candidates cast doubt on the parties’ ability to maintain public support and raised concerns over Beirut’s ability to uphold its model of coexistence.

For example, Sunni voters were striking off Shiite candidates affiliated with Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, as well as Christian candidates affiliated with the Lebanese Forces and their allies.

The capital experienced intense competition between two main lists: the “Beirut Unites Us” list, which includes candidates from political parties with significant discord, under the slogan “Preserving Equal Representation of Muslims and Christians,” and the “Beirut Madinati” list, supported by Change deputies.

The Forces of Change is a parliamentary bloc that comprises multiple reformist parties and independent MPs.

Other lists were also running in the electoral race.

They include a list of candidates affiliated with the Future Movement, which suspended its political activity, and candidates of the Islamic Group, as well as other civilian lists.

The civilian voter turnout remained low until 2 p.m., not exceeding 13 percent.

Voters affiliated with Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, and the Al-Ahbash Association were expected to arrive at polling centers in groups before voting concluded at 7 p.m., aiming to tip the balance in favor of their party list.

Abu Al-Abed Al-Nuri, a voter in one of the Al-Mazraa electoral centers, said that “he composed his list by himself, choosing only Sunni candidates.

“All parties have wronged Beirut and caused disastrous consequences; however, they have now united and insist on sharing the benefits while ignoring our demands and problems,” he added.

MP Fouad Makhzoumi said: “We are trying to impose equal representation in voting.”

MP Hagop Terzian from the Free Patriotic Movement bloc stated: “Parties are not from Mars; they are part of Beirut and have allied to ensure equal representation.”

Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri said: “We insist on equal representation. Cross-outs are Beirut’s enemy.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea urged voters in Beirut to support the parties’ list “because the elections in Beirut reflect on coexistence in Lebanon, as it is the capital that represents the country’s main face.”

Competition for municipal seats was also fierce in the Bekaa, particularly in Zahle and Baalbek, raising voter turnout to 30 and 40 percent during the day.

Several people, including two members of the Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch, were injured in Zahle during a raid conducted by a patrol from the branch, supported by a Lebanese Army unit, on a Hezbollah electoral office in the area on suspicion of bribery.

Around 15 young men were present at the site during the raid.

The permits of several representatives for the non-partisan Change list in the city of Baalbek disappeared.

It was revealed that the person who hid the permits — and who was arrested by the security forces — was working for the Hezbollah list in the area.


At least 3 killed in blast targeting police station in eastern Syria

Updated 18 May 2025
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At least 3 killed in blast targeting police station in eastern Syria

CAIRO: At least three people were killed when a blast targeted a police station in the eastern Syrian town of Al-Mayadeen on Sunday, the state news agency said, citing a security source.
The explosion also injured several people, the report said, without providing further details.