Marwa el-Selahdar, falsely accused of being in charge of Ever Given

Marwa el-Selahdar is the first Egyptian and Arab woman to pilot ships, but that's not what made her name heard around the world. A fake screenshot of an Arab News story circulated online claiming that she was piloting the Ever Given boat that obstructed traffic in the Suez Canal.

El-Selahdar confirmed to several Egyptian news websites that this story is completely false and said in a statement that the photos were fabricated and that the information posted on social media is a campaign against her.

In addition, she has discovered that there are three fake accounts bearing her name on the social networking site Twitter, which have gained 20,000 followers within a few hours of their launch.

Marwa el-Selahdar is Egypt's first female captain and first female Marine officer at the Naval Academy's Maritime Forum. She confirmed that the images circulating on social media claiming that she was leading the rogue ship in the Suez Canal are not real. 

At the time of the Suez blockade, El-Selehdar was working as first officer in command of the Alexandria Governorate Maritime Safety Authority's Aida IV, which carries out supply missions to a lighthouse in the Red Sea hundreds of kilometres away.

He said it was operating normally and had no connection with the Suez Canal container. He told the BBC that it had "surprised" him. "I felt I could be a target maybe because I am a successful woman in this field or because I am Egyptian, but I am not sure," she said.

Marwa tells the BBC that she was inspired to join the merchant navy after her brother enrolled at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), and that she had always had a passion for the sea. However, the academy only accepted men at the time, but she enrolled anyway and after a legal review by then president Hosni Mubarak, she was granted permission to join.  

Despite her achievements, she said she endured sexism during her studies, which she had to overcome alone. She noted that "people in our society still don't accept the idea of girls working at sea away from their families for a long time". "But when you do what you love, you don't need to seek everyone's approval," she added. 

She later rose to the rank of first officer and commanded the Aida IV when it became the first ship to cross the Suez Canal after it was expanded in 2015. This also made her the youngest Egyptian captain and the first woman to sail the waterway.

After the rumour spread that she was the one captaining Ever Given, she said she was afraid that this would undo all the work she had done. And that while many of the comments were negative about the articles, she said some were encouraging. He tried to deny what the article said because it was affecting his reputation and all the efforts he made to be where he is now.

Next month El-Selahdar will take her final exam for the full rank of captain and hopes to continue to inspire women. In 2017, she was honoured by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to mark Egypt's Women's Day. 

The Ever Given, the giant ship flying the flag of Panama, got stuck due to bad weather conditions while crossing the Suez Canal, one of the most used shipping lanes in the world.

The head of the Canal Authority, Lieutenant General Osama Rabie, said in a statement that the accident was caused by "lack of visibility due to bad weather conditions as the country passed through a dust storm, with wind speeds reaching 40 knots" and that this led to the loss of the ability to control a ship and then to its sinking.