27 dead, several missing as boat capsizes in river

Lagos: In a tragic incident, at least 27 people lost their lives and several others went missing as a Nigerian river ferry capsized in Niger River. The boat reportedly had more than 50 people on board. The disaster happened on the Niger, near Dambo in Kogi state, at a point where West Africa’s mightiest river can be more than 600 metres (yards) across.

‘It’s unclear how many people were on board, people don’t usually keep a record of passengers. Search and rescue is still ongoing for survivors and possible bodies. It’s not clear what caused the accident,” Musa said. “It could be from turbulence or from the boat hitting a snag. Boat operators don’t usually have life jackets, so none of the bodies recovered had life jackets on,’ said Sandra Musa, of the state emergency management agency.

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This accident is  the latest in a series of mass drowning on this stretch of the Niger flowing from the northeastern border towards central Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea. Last month, around a 100 people were feared dead after a boat carrying 300 passengers, many of them women and children, to a Muslim festival in Niger State flipped over in the river.

In September, an overloaded boat sank while carrying more than 50 farmers across the Gummi River in Zamfara state. More than 40 are believed to have died. In June 2023, more than 100 people died when a river boat carrying around 250 passengers capsized in the north-central state of Kwara, one of the country’s deadliest waterway accidents in years.