A Kuwaiti liner carrying 99 Iranian passengers bound for a port in the Gulf emirate sank Tuesday afternoon in Arvand-Roud River in Khuzestan province bordering the Arabian Gulf, an Iranian official source said Wednesday.
"All of the passengers had already disembarked from the liner before it sank, but their accompanying baggage sank along with the liner," he told the official Iranian news agency, IRNA.
According to the source, the Kuwaiti liner, called the Express, sank due to an "explosion in its engine."
Following the explosion, the passengers were transferred to an oil tanker and brought to the Iranian Abadan Port," he said.
The source further said that after news of the sinking of the liner, Iranian police as well as the special representative of Iranian President Khatami in Abadan Port arrived on the scene to look into the cause of the sinking.
Iran is fighting a long-running war against dissidents opposed to the Islamic republic, which was organized after the country deposed its US-backed monarch in 1979 – Albawaba.com
