35 children drown in a boat tragedy
15 children drowned and 25 others were missing after their overloaded boat capsized on a river in a local official said.
The local administrator in Dundeji village said that the children were on their way to collect firewood in the bush which is on the other side of Shagari river when the boat they were using to cross the swollen river sank.
Aliyu Abubakar, local administrator of Shagari district, added that they woke up to a tragedy yesterday morning, where a boat carrying children capsized mid-river.
Rescue team responded to the incident and were able to retrieve fifteen bodies, 13 of the recovered bodies were girls and two were boys.
The local administrator supervised the rescue operation.
River accidents are frequent in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, poor maintenance, heavy flooding in rainy season and disregard of safety regulations.
Local Divers have been working on the Shagari river since late yesterday searching for more of the children. It is reported that twenty five children are still missing.
“I’ll only pray for the repose of those who lost their lives and may God give their parents the fortitude to bear the loss because whoever loses his loved one has no other choice. Mohammed Yello Abubakar, a relative of a missing child and boatman on the Shagari river.
In April last year, twenty nine children from nearby Gidan Magana village in Sokoto drowned in the same river when their vessel capsized while they were also on their way to collect firewood for their domestic use.
During massive flooding in the rainy season last December, at least 76 people drowned when their boat went down in a swollen river in southeast Anambra State.In one of the country’s worst river disasters in May 2021, only 20 people were rescued and more than 150 went missing when a boat transporting people to market broke apart while travelling between Kebbi and Niger states.
Nigeria’s waterways authority has tried to ban night-time sailing on rivers to stop accidents, and overloading vessels is a criminal offence, but skippers and crews often flout the rules. 35 children drown in a boat tragedy
