More than 60 people have died and hundreds are said to be missing after an overloaded boat sank on the Congo river at night, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s humanitarian affairs minister Steve has stated.
Minister Steve Mbikayi said more than 700 people had been aboard the vessel but that only 300 survivors had been found so far at the site of the disaster in Mai-Ndombe province in the west of the country.
The boat was sailing through the night from Kinshasa to Mbandaka when it ran into trouble near the village of Longola Ekoti in the province of Mai-Ndombe.
The boat has been overloaded and that was the main cause for the mishap. The vessel had departed from the capital, Kinshasa, and was heading to Equator province.
“The main cause of the sinking remains the overload of goods and the excess number of passengers in the whaling boat,” the minister said, adding “that night navigation also played a role in the sinking”.
