A passenger boat carrying mourners to a funeral sank on a lake in the northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), killing at least 40 people and with more missing, officials said on Friday.
The accident, which happened on Wednesday on Lake Tumba in the northern Equateur province, involved three large canoes that had been attached together, provincial interior minister Crispin Mputu Molia said.
“We’ve found 40 bodies so far and dozens of survivors. There’s also a still-undetermined number of people missing,” he said.
Dieu-Merci Akula, a local resident, gave the death toll as 54.
“Yesterday, we had 52 bodies, and two more were found this morning,” he said.
The boat was carrying the body of a deceased woman and more than 200 people to a funeral in the village of Ikoko-Bonginda, the sources said.
Witnesses had told officials the boat ran into large waves, Mputu said.
“The drivers were unable to cope,” he said.
An investigation has been opened to determine the exact cause of the accident, he added.
Mputu said the boat did not have a passenger list, making it “difficult to say if it was overloaded.”
The DR Congo, an African giant rich in natural resources, but racked by decades of conflict, is a frequent scene of deadly lake and riverboat tragedies.
The absence of passenger lists often complicates search and rescue operations, and makes it impossible to establish an exact death toll.
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