Up to 150 drown as overloaded ferry capsizes

UP to 150 Congolese drowned after an overloaded ferry carrying around 200 passengers capsized in bad weather on East Africa’s Lake Tanganyika at the weekend, port and militia officials said yesterday.

The Congolese-owned ferry, MV Kasobwe, was on its way from Kalemie in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to Uvira, a town in the north of the country, when it hit heavy winds and capsized in Burundian waters early on Sunday.

“There were 150 passengers who died and 39 rescued by the Burundi marines,” Amongi Ngombe, the director of Kalundu port in Uvira, told Reuters.

The boat had been loaded down with potatoes, cassava, fish and maize as well as passengers.

The accident is the latest in a string of ferry disasters in Africa. The worst was last September, when more than 1,000 people died after a Senegalese ferry carrying twice the number of people it was built for overturned in heavy seas off Gambia.