At least 60 people died when a passenger barge carrying more than 700 people became shipwrecked on the Congo River at night, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DR Congo) humanitarian affairs minister said on Monday.
About 300 survivors had been found near the scene of the accident in Mai-Ndombe Province in the west of the country, but another 240 remained unaccounted for, DR Congo Humanitarian Affairs Minister Steve Mbikayi wrote on Twitter.
Earlier figures had put the death toll at nine, with hundreds believed missing.
“A whaling barge overloaded with passengers and goods capsized at around 8pm on Sunday on the Congo River 23 kilometers from Kinshasa,” provincial government spokesman Charles Mbutamuntu told reporters.
The boat involved was a baleiniere or “whaler” — a commonly used flat-bottomed vessel 15m to 30m long by 2m to 6m wide.
It was headed for Mbandaka, the capital of the DR Congo’s Equateur Province, about 700km from Kinshasa.
The vast central African country has very few passable roads, so many people travel along the Congo River and its tributaries.
Shipwrecks are frequent, often with a high human toll.
The boats are often dilapidated and overloaded, with passengers not wearing life jackets and many of them not able to swim.
Those running the boats also frequently dodge weight restrictions.
After a devastating shipwreck on Lake Kivu that killed 142 people, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi in April 2019 announced that all passengers should wear life jackets, but the requirement is routinely ignored.
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