The wooden boat that capsized in Mokwa, Niger state was carrying mostly women and children.
More than 100 people are missing after a boat carrying mostly women and children capsized in Niger state in northern Nigeria, authorities said.
The local wooden boat had a capacity of 100 passengers and around 300 people were on board when it capsized in the rural Mokwa area, emergency officials said Wednesday.
Abdullahi Baba Ala, director of Niger’s National Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), said the ship sank in the Niger River at around 8:30pm (8:30pm Japan time) on Tuesday night.
The passengers were returning from a Muslim festival when the incident occurred.
Babaala announced early on Wednesday that rescue workers and volunteers in Mokwa Local Government Area had rescued 150 people.
“Search and rescue operations are currently ongoing to find more survivors,” the NSEMA chief added in a statement.
Later that day, Nigerian news outlet Punch reported that Baba Ala said nine bodies had been recovered.
“Nine bodies have been recovered from the boat accident in Gbajibo: two women and seven men,” Baba Ala said in an update, the newspaper reported.
Local media outlet Vanguard News cited a news release from the chairman of the Mokwa local government council as saying that dozens of bodies had been recovered.
“Council Chairman Abdullahi Muregi confirmed that around 60 bodies have been recovered and 10 survivors have been found,” Vanguard reported.
According to local government and NSEMA officials, the boat was heading from Mundi to Gbagibo for the annual Mauld festival when the accident occurred.
Ismaila Umar, who heads Mokwa’s captains’ association, told Reuters it was unlikely any survivors would be found.
This is the second such major disaster in Niger state in the last 18 months, after another boating accident killed more than 100 people.
Experts say most of the shipping accidents that have occurred in Nigeria in recent years have been due to poor regulations, often caused by overloaded or poorly maintained vessels.
“The boat was not supposed to carry more than 100 people, but there were close to 300 people on board. And that’s what caused the boat to break,” said Salifu Garba, director of rescue and rehabilitation at the state emergency services. told the Associated Press.
NSEMA’s Baba Ara said his agency is investigating what happened in Tuesday’s incident, and the cause has not yet been determined, local media reported.
