A local governor says 78 people die when a boat capsizing in Lake Kivu in Congo

A provincial governor said that at least 78 people killed Thursday when a boat with 278 people on board capsized in Lake Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A Reuters witness said that family members were crying on the shore as the bodies were being taken away in body bags. Videos that have been shared widely online show a crowded multi-deck ship listing sideways in calm water before it flips over and throws flailing passengers into the lake.

Reuters could not quickly check the footage to make sure it was real.
Different officers in the area gave different numbers for the number of deaths, so it wasn’t clear how many people were still missing.

South Kivu’s governor said that 78 people died and that 278 people were on board.

“It will take at least three days to get the exact numbers,” Governor Jean Jacques Purisi told Reuters. “Not all the bodies have been found yet.”

North Kivu’s governor said that 58 people had survived the accident and that 28 people had been declared dead so far.

A statement from him said that the accident is being looked into as to why the boat sank about 700 meters from port.

In Congolese waters, where boats are often overloaded, fatal boat crashes happen all the time.

One victim at a nearby hospital said it was calm when the crowded boat flipped over. He fought to stay afloat while everyone else around him drowned until Congolese troops came and saved him.

“Many of the people I saw were going under.” From his hospital bed, 51-year-old Alfani Buroko Byamungu said, “I saw women and children sinking in the water. I was about to drown, but God saved me.”

A lot of people gathered at the Goma port where the ship was supposed to dock. Some people wiped their tears away or sobbed on the ground, while others yelled angrily, saying that the government was to blame for the overcrowding on boats because of a long-running rebel war that blocked roads.

The war caused all of these things to happen. “They don’t bother to get the enemies off the road so that it can be used again,” yelled Mushagulua Bienfait, a resident of Goma who lost three family members in the accident.