More than 150 people are missing after an overloaded boat sank in northwest Nigeria on the Niger River, local authorities said on Wednesday, saying they feared they would all be drowned. The boat came from the state of Niger (center) and was heading towards the state of Kebbi (north). “The boat’s capacity was far less than the 180 passengers it was carrying,” local Waterways official Yusuf Birma told reporters.
“At this time, only 20 people have been found alive, four dead and the remaining 156 are still missing and probably underwater,” he said. “It was an old wooden boat in bad condition” which was going to a local market and which sank after an hour of travel, said Mr. Birma. President Muhammadu Buhari, describing this accident as “appalling”, offered his condolences to the families, without giving in his press release an official assessment of the disaster.
Previous reports from local authorities reported about twenty survivors out of about 160 passengers, or some 140 missing. The ship was also carrying a cargo of sandbags extracted from a nearby gold mine, said the administrative official of Ngaski Department in Kebbi State Abdullahi Buhari Wara.
Frequent shipwrecks on the Niger
During the rainy season, capsized boats are common on Nigeria’s rivers and streams, where ships are often overloaded and poorly maintained. This last accident would however be one of the deadliest. In early May, an overloaded boat capsized and 30 people drowned in Niger State. The ship, which was carrying around 100 people, broke in two after hitting a stump during a storm while returning from a market.
In October 2017 at least 17 people had drowned and 26 had disappeared after the sinking of a boat carrying around 60 passengers on the Niger, in northwestern Nigeria. It had struck a tree trunk in the river, the level of which had risen following heavy rains. In September of the same year, an overloaded boat carrying 150 traders capsized on the river, leaving at least 33 dead and 23 missing. In September 2013, 42 people were killed and around 100 were reported missing in the sinking of an overloaded boat that broke on the Niger River in central Nigeria. On March 1, 2003, more than 80 people were reported missing after a boat sank that hit a rock while crossing the Niger River in Kebbi State. The Niger, one of the continent’s three largest rivers, after the Nile and the Congo, is West Africa’s main waterway.
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