New shipwreck leaves dead and missing

Another passenger vessel has capsized on a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, local sources said Monday, leaving a number of people dead and missing a week after 47 died in similar circumstances.

A civil society representative said 40 people had died and dozens more were missing in the latest tragedy.

An official in the Equateur province gave no figure but spoke of several dead while waiting to hear from a team of investigators sent to the scene.

The riverboat, a wooden ship known as a “whaler” carrying passengers and goods, went down in the night of Saturday-Sunday near the village of Boyeka on the Lulonga river, Joseph Boyoko Lokondo of the Generation Conscious pressure group told AFP.

“The same causes, overloaded and navigating at night, produce the same effects,” he said, deploring a provisional casualty toll of “40 dead, 200 survivors and several dozens missing”.

“After the last shipwreck, the transport minister had promised drastic measures, but nothing happens on the ground” he added.

Transport Minister Marc Ekila said at least 47 died and an unknown number of people remained missing after another whaler sunk on the night of October 13-14 after leaving the city of Mbandaka in DRC’s Equateur province.

That accident was also due to “overloading”, the minister said, adding that “wooden boats” were not authorised to operate at night.

The vast Central African nation has few practicable roads, so travel often occurs on lakes, the Congo River and its tributaries, where shipwrecks are frequent and the toll often heavy.