At least 143 people died and dozens of other missing after a fire at the beginning of the week in a boat in the Congo River, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC), several officials said on Friday, April 18.
“A first group of 131 bodies found Wednesday, another 12 recruited on Thursday and Friday,” said Joséphine-Pacific Lokumu to AFP, a national deputy who was there, in the province of Ecuador, in the northwest of the country.
An official of a local association, Joseph Lokondo, reported “an still provisional evaluation of 145 dead, burned, others by drowning.”
“Hundreds” of passengers
In a video that circulates on social networks, you can see a long boat with the flames.
The fire in the motorized wooden boat that transported the edge of the fuel exploded on Tuesday in front of Mbandaka, capital of the province of Ecuador, said Joséphine-Pacific Lokumu.
When he was on the boat, “a woman turned on the coals to cook. The fuel that was not far from him exploded, killing many children and women,” said the deputy.
The total number of passengers aboard the boat is unknown, but it was estimated at “hundreds,” he said.
The survivors were admitted to the hospital, said Joseph Lokondo, without specifying their number.
On Friday, “several families still had no news of their relatives,” according to the manager of the association who participated in the burials of the victims.
Many shipwrecks
The immense country in Central Africa, with an area of 2.3 million km2, has very few practicable paths, trips are made in the Congo River and its tributaries, as well as in the Eastern lakes, Kivu and Tanganika in particular.
The dream occurs regularly in Congoleña waters (lakes, rivers, rivers) with balances that are often heavy. The chronic absence of the passenger list complicates research operations.
Last year, more than 20 people died in the capacity of a boat in Lake Kivu, in the east of the RDC, according to local authorities.
In October 2023, a shipwreck of a boat in the Congo River in the province of Ecuador killed 47 people.
In 2021, the sinking of an improvised boat in the Congo River had left more than one hundred dead or disappeared, in the Mongala, the province of the Northwest Forest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Source: BFM TV
