ABUJA – At the very least 32 folks have died in Nigeria’s northern Niger state after a ship sank in a river, an official has stated.
The boat was reportedly overloaded, carrying about 100 passengers together with ladies and youngsters, capsized when it struck a submerged tree stump on the River Niger within the Borgu space on Tuesday morning.
They had been on their method to a close-by village to pay their respects to the household of somebody who had not too long ago died.
Abdullahi Baba Ara, the spokesman of the Nationwide Emergency Administration Company (Nema) within the state, informed BBC Hausa on Thursday that greater than 50 different folks had been rescued, with eight nonetheless lacking.
Search operations are persevering with.
Ara stated the federal government had arrange a staff of “water marshals” to cease boat operators from overloading their vessels and guarantee passengers put on life jackets.
“Maybe the water marshals weren’t on obligation when this boat took off,” he stated, including that investigations had began.
A neighborhood district head informed the Reuters information company that he had been on the scene quickly after the accident.
“I used to be on the scene yesterday round 12 pm till 4 pm. The boat carried greater than 100 folks. We had been capable of get well 31 corpses from the river. The boat was additionally recovered and eliminated,” Reuters quoted Sa’adu Inuwa Muhammad as saying.
Boat accidents are pretty frequent in Nigeria, typically as a result of overloading, poor regulation and insufficient security precautions.
About 25 folks went lacking final month after a ship accident in Sokoto state.
In December final 12 months, 54 our bodies had been recovered from the River Niger after a ship that will have been carrying greater than 200 passengers capsized.
The federal government has made it obligatory for water travellers to at all times put on life jackets, however that is typically not enforced.
In February, the Minister of Marine and Blue Financial system, Adegboyega Oyetola, arrange a “Particular Committee on the Prevention of Boat Mishaps in Nigeria”, and in Might the ministry introduced that it might be distributing 42,000 life jackets throughout 12 riverine states within the nation.
Later within the month, the Nationwide Inland Water Methods Authority (NIWA) kicked off a marketing campaign they known as “No Life Jacket, No Journey”, and “No Evening Travelling” in Niger and Kwara states the place boat accidents have occurred frequently within the latest previous.
Niger state is Nigeria’s largest by land mass and folks are likely to journey so much by water as it’s typically the quickest and least expensive technique of getting round. – BBC
