No fewer than eight passengers were confirmed dead and an estimated 100 were missing after their overloaded boat capsized in Niger State, the emergency services said Tuesday, Africa Today News, New York reports.
It is the most recent in a string of tragic boat mishaps that increasingly highlight regulatory shortcomings.
According to Ibrahim Audu, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, the boat capsized in the Niger River on Monday afternoon as the passengers were being transported from the Borgu area of Niger state to a market in the neighbouring state of Kebbi.
He stated that although the boat can accommodate 100 people, it was likely carrying a lot more people in addition to bags of grain, which made it challenging to steer when the boat started to sink.
Villagers were helping local divers and emergency officials to search for the missing passengers, many of whom were women, Audu said. He could not say how many people had survived.
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Boat disasters have become rampant in remote communities across Nigeria, where locals desperate to get their farm products to market end up overcrowded in locally made boats in the absence of good and accessible roads.
Africa Today News, New York reports that at the moment, there is no record of the total death toll in these accidents, though there have been at least five involving at least 100 passengers each in the past seven months.
Past accidents have been blamed on overloading, the condition of the boat or a hindrance of the boat’s movement along the water. And intervention measures announced in response by authorities — such as the provision of life jackets or enforcing of waterways regulations — are usually not carried out.