40 PEOPLE PRESUMED DEAD AFTER PASSENGER BOAT CAPSIZING IN CONGO

Wed 31 January 2024:

40 people are thought to be dead after a passenger boat overturned in a lake in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s South Kivu region, Anadolu Agency reported.

The official said that five bodies have been found and 10 people have been rescued since the incident on Sunday.

Following the boat capsize in Lake Kivu in Idjwi area in South Kivu province on Sunday night, search activities entered their third day on Wednesday, and families’ hopes of finding survivors began to wane.

The wooden boat, which was crossing Lake Kivu from Bukavu to Idjwi territory with an estimated 50 passengers on board, sank due to a strong wave, Mustafa Mamboleo, a South Kivu province official told reporters in Idjwi town on Tuesday.

He added that the accident could have been caused by overloading, as the boat was also carrying goods.

“After the incident, marines recovered the boat captain’s body on Monday evening, and another body of a woman was found on Tuesday,” Ngongo Chishibanji, a maritime officer in South Kivu, told Anadolu over the phone on Wednesday.

Three bodies were discovered on the same day as the incident, he added.

Noting that 10 people have been rescued thus far, Chishibanji said search efforts are still ongoing for approximately 35 people who are missing, “though the likelihood of finding survivors is hard by now.”

A woman who only gave her name as Maombe told reporters that her hopes of finding her 23-year-old sibling, Alice, who was one of the passengers, has faded as time passed.

Water transport is common in DR Congo due to mostly impassable roads. The accident occurred hardly a month after 22 people died on Lake Mai-Ndombe.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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