18 feared dead in fresh Niger boat mishap

Another boat mishap has occurred in Kokoli village in Borgu Local
Government Area of Niger state with 18 people feared dead.
This tragedy came barely six days after the boat mishap in Malale
village along River Niger in the LGA in which 26 lives were lost.
Our correspondent gathered that 10 corpses from the latest tragedy had
being recovered.
It was also gathered that, out of the 18 feared dead, 16 were women.
It was gathered that the boat capsized while conveying traders from
the weekly Thursday market from Kokoli village to Ulakami at about
4pm.
The boat was said to be carrying no fewer than 80 passengers when it
suddenly broke into two half way into their journey.
One of the survivors, called Umar Ibrahim, told newsmen that they were
only half way into their journey when the boat suddenly split into two
with the passengers drowning.
According to him, "we had just gone to the middle of the journey which
is about 10 kilometres when the boat split into two and people started
screaming and falling into water".
He said because of his experience in swimming, he was able to swim to
safety and also able to rescue about 10 people, mainly women and
children.
The survivor said the casualties would have been more if not for the
rescue operation by the captain of the boat and other passengers in
the boat who rose to the occasion by rescuing other passengers who
could not swim.
The village head, Mohammed Garba, confirmed that after frantic search,
18 people were ascertained dead and recovered.