143 killed after fuel-carrying boat catches fire and capsizes in DR Congo

A boat carrying fuel caught fire and capsized in the Democratic Republic of Congo, resulting in at least 143 deaths.

The fire could be seen from afar.(X/JAS)

According to an AFP report, around a dozen people remain missing following the tragic incident. Joseph Lokondo, a local civil society leader who assisted in burying the victims, has estimated the “provisional death toll at 145.”

Hundreds of passengers were crowded onto a wooden boat on the Congo River in northwest DRC on Tuesday when the blaze broke out, according to Josephine-Pacifique Lokumu, head of a delegation of national deputies from the region.

The horrific fire broke out when the boat was near Mbandaka, capital of Equateur Province, at the confluence of the Ruki and the world’s deepest Congo River.

“A first group of 131 bodies was found on Wednesday, with a further 12 fished out on Thursday and Friday. Several of them are charred,” Lokumu told AFP.

The official toll from the incident is yet to be made public.

The fire on the boat was caused by a fuel explosion ignited by an onboard cooking fire. According to reports, a woman lit a fire for cooking, resulting in an explosion in the fuel that was kept nearby, killing many in an instant.

Collective funerals are being conducted with several families directly retrieving the bodies of their loved ones once they were found, according to testimonies.

Some survivors were rescued and admitted to the hospital.

Search for the missing continues, days after the blaze

Search is still going on for the people who have gone missing after the incident. The efforts continued on Saturday, “but the chances of finding survivors or additional bodies are slim, three days after the tragedy”, AFP quoted a source as saying.

A vast central African nation that covers 2.3 million square kilometres (900,000 square miles), the DRC suffers from a lack of practicable roads while planes serve only a limited number of cities and towns.

As a result, people often travel on lakes, the Congo River — the second longest in Africa after the Nile — and its winding tributaries, where shipwrecks are frequent and the death tolls often heavy.