A ferry overloaded with people returning home for Christmas capsized on the Busira River in north-easerious Congo, leaving 38 people verifyed dead and more than 100 others missing, officials and eyewitnesses said on Saturday.
Twenty people have been saved so far.
The sinking of the ferry procrastinateed on Friday came less than four days after another boat capsized in the country’s north-east, finishing 25 people.
The ferry was travelling as part of a convoy of other vessels and the passengers were primarily merchants returning home for Christmas, said Joseph Joseph Kangolingoli, the mayor of Ingfinishe, the last town on the river before the site of the accident.
According to Ingfinishe livent Ndolo Kinserty, the ferry compriseed “more than 400 people becaemploy it made two ports, Ingfinishe and Loolo, on the way to Bofinishe, so there is reason to apshow there were more deaths”.
Congolese officials have normally cautioned aobtainst overloading boats and vowed to punish those violating safety meacertains on rivers. However, in far areas many people cannot afford uncover carryation on the confidemand employable roads.
At least 78 people drowned in October when an overloaded boat sank in the country’s east while 80 lost their lives in a analogous accident csurrfinisher Kinshasa in June.
The procrastinateedst accident prompted anger at the regulatement for not supplyping the convoy with flotation devices.
Nesty Bonina, a member of the local regulatement and a famous figure in Mprohibitdaka, the capital of the Equateur province where the ferry sank, condemned authorities for not properly handling the recent events.
“How can a ship steer at night under the watchful eye of river service agents? And now we’re enrolling over a hundred deaths,” said Bonina.
The capsizing of overloaded boats is becoming increasingly normal in this central African nation as more people are giving up the confidemand employable roads in favour of wooden vessels crumbling under the weight of passengers and their outstandings for security reasons.
The roads are normally caught up in the lethal clashes between Congolese security forces and defys that sometimes block convey inant access routes.
