DAKAR -- Hopes were fading on Saturday for almost 700 people still missing and feared drowned in a Senegalese ferry disaster, as the government came under fire for its role in what could turn out to be one of the world's worst maritime disasters.

Rescuers continued to search on Saturday for passengers of the ferry, the Joola, which capsized and sank on Thursday night in stormy seas off Africa's West Coast on Thursday night.

Senegalese authorities said 41 bodies had so far been recovered and around 60 survivors plucked from the sea by rescue vessels and passing fishing boats sent to the area, AFP reported.

Two French Military vessels and a helicopter also joined the search on Saturday, but rescuers said the chances of finding more survivors was growing increasingly slim.

The Joola was carrying 796 passengers when it left Ziguinchor, the main town of the southern Senegalese Province of Casamance, for the capital Dakar, officials said.

Five Spaniards and at least a dozen French nationals are among the missing along with an unspecified number of other Europeans, sources in Dakar said. One Frenchman was among the survivors taken to Gambia on Friday.

Senegal's independent press was near-unanimous on Saturday in blaming the disaster on the government, which had returned the Joola to service earlier this month after a year of repairs to the vessel.

"Criminal negligence," the Sud daily newspaper declared in its front-page headline. The Joola "should never have taken to the sea", it said.

The paper claimed some of the 796 passengers on board had noticed that the boat was unbalanced "from the start of the journey".

Another Dakar-based daily, Walfadjri, said the tragedy had been caused by "negligence" and "technical failings" affecting the engines -- one of which had been repaired from salvaged parts while the other was still being run in.

The paper also blamed overcrowding -- the day after marine officials said the Joola had been designed to carry only 550 people -- and condemned the government's decision to return the Joola to service as "criminal populism".

Mame Madior Boye's government earlier this month trumpeted the boat's return to the seas by inviting Senegalese journalists to join two ministers aboard since the repairs.

Prime Minister Boye insisted on Friday that "the boat's condition is not in any doubt", adding that early information showed it had capsized under the combined effect of wind and heavy rains.

But even the pro-government Soleil newspaper joined in the criticism on Saturday. If the Joola was incapable of traveling in high winds, the paper said, "it should not have been at sea."

A rebel leader in Casamance, which has been plagued by a violent separatist insurgency for two decades, also accused the government of responsibility in the deaths of passengers. Sidy Badji said the sinking "resembles an organized, planned massacre" of people from his region, accusing the government of "deliberately putting the Joola into service in an irresponsible way despite its very bad state."

The Joola served as an important link between Dakar and Casamance, which lie on opposite sides of Gambia's narrow territory and the river of the same name.