Egypt’s first female ship’s captain says she was subject to a fake news campaign blaming her for grounding the Ever Given container ship in the Suez Canal, despite working on a ship that was hundreds of kilometres away at the time.
Marwa Elselehdar was working as a first mate on the
Aida IV in Alexandria when the 200,000-tonne
Ever Given got stuck, blocking one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. The 29-year-old is a figure celebrated by feminists in Egypt. In 2015 she became both the youngest and the first female Egyptian captain to navigate the newly expanded Suez Canal.
“I felt that I might be targeted maybe because I’m a successful female in this field or because I’m Egyptian, but I’m not sure,” she said.
Marwa Elselehdar: I was blamed for blocking the Suez Canal https://t.co/Bs0nCcdT3B
The online rumors were propelled by a doctored image of a news headline headline that said she was involved in the Suez accident.
The fake image, purportedly from the Arab News outlet, appears to be from an actual story about Elselehdar from March 22 that was unrelated to Suez.
Some Twitter accounts under Elselehdar’s name also spread false rumors that she was involved in the Ever Given’s crash.
Who is Marwa Elselehdar? The woman accused of the Suez Canal obstruction
The consequences of the Suez Canal blockage has been reported to cost billions of dollars. Unfortunately, Marwa Elselehdar has been used as the ‘scapegoat’ for this global trading halt. One thing though, she claims she was not even present on the ship. So, who is the woman taking the hit for this economically damaging event?
The media went into a frenzy on Tuesday March 23rd, when news hit that Ever Given, a Golden-class container ship, was blocking one of the world’s busiest trade routes, the Suez Canal.
I felt that I might be targeted maybe because I m a successful female in this field or because I m Egyptian, but I m not sure, Elselehdar told the BBC. She added, People in our society still don t accept the idea of girls working in the sea away from their families for a long time. But when you do what you love, it is not necessary for you to seek the approval of everyone.
So who was to blame for blocking the Suez Canal and causing delays in billions of dollars of cargo? It depends on how you look at it.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), a multinational shipping company based in Germany, were the technical managers of the Ever Given, which is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha, a subsidiary of a Japanese shipbuilding company, and operated by the Evergreen Marine, a shipping company based in Taiwan, but registered in Panama. At the time, pilots from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) were on board as consultants and are now under scrutiny, although the steering of the vessel remai