30 dead after a boat sank on Lake Mai-Ndombe

More than 30 dead after a boat sank on lake Mai-Ndombe in western Democratic Republic of Congo.

The vessel is reported to have been carrying over 400 people of which 170 have been rescured while more than 200 missing.

The overloaded boat was the reason for this accident. DR Congo which is about the size of mainland western Europe has poor road networks and several areas are in accessible by air or boat and only super-highway is the Congo River.

Lake Mai-Ndombe is about 100 miles east of Yumi, the town notorious for violence between the Bununu and Batende ethnic group which flared a few weeks before the country’s presidential election in December 2018, leaving nearly 900 people dead.

Simon Mboo Wemba, the mayor of Inongo , the provincial capital of Mai-Ndombe  province, said most of the people aboard were teachers who were travelling to collect their salaries by boat because local roads were in poor condition.