Death toll from DRCongo boat accident passes 60

KINSHASA: Another 26 bodies were recovered following a deadly boat accident in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said Saturday, bringing the total confirmed dead to more than 60.

The official toll for Wednesday’s accident, when a passenger boat carrying mourners to a funeral sank on Lake Tumba in Equateur province, was initially put at 40 people on Friday.

But local official Dieu-Merci Akula told AFP on Saturday: “This morning, we found 26 more bodies in the waters of the lake, in the Bikoro region.”

Red Cross personnel were working with local government officials on the continuing search for bodies and the burial of those recovered, he added.

On Friday provincial interior minister Crispin Mputu Molia said the accident involved three large canoes that had been attached together.

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The boat was carrying the body of a woman and more than 200 people to a funeral in the village of Ikoko-Bonginda, said local officials.

Kolomba Mampuya, president of the local Red Cross, said Saturday would be the last day of searching, as 72 hours after the disaster “there won’t be any more hope of finding bodies”.

One civil society group for Equateur province, citing witnesses, alleged the boat had been overcrowded.

But interior minister Mputu Molia said on Friday that the absence of a passenger list made that difficult to determine.

Some witnesses told officials the boat ran into large waves, he told AFP.

DRC, a vast country rich in natural resources but racked by decades of conflict, frequently suffers deadly accidents on lakes and rivers, which serve as highways in many areas because of a lack of roads.

The absence of passenger lists often complicates search and rescue operations and makes it impossible to establish an exact death toll.

After taking office in 2019, President Felix Tshisekedi tried to impose safety measures such as mandatory life vests for passenger vessels, but the regulations have largely been ignored.