More than 27 people have died in a tragic shipwreck of a wooden whaling boat on the Congo River in the city of Mbandaka, Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo.
The civil society in Équateur Province revealed the provisional assessment of the tragedy that occured on Friday night claimed the lives of victims including children and a manager of the electoral commission, CENI branch in Bolomba territory.
This tragedy has been attributed to non-compliance of navigation measures in the overloading of passengers in the whaleboat as well as navigating in the night.
The Mapamboli Boat capsized around 9 PM on Friday as made its way through the river port of Bankita, in the centre of the city of Mbandaka.
Over 100 passengers had been on board with several other items including bags of cement, iron bars and thousands of liters of fuel.
With the recovery operation of bodies still on and more than 27 victims so far retrieved, the death toll is expected to rise in the coming hours.
The retrieved bodies are urgently been transported to different hospitals in the city Mbandaka with several morgues already full due to this tragic event.
