A total of 12 people were traveling in the canoe, mostly farmers, who wanted to visit their agricultural fields. “The sinking occurred due to overcrowding in the canoe,” said Nobre dos Santos.
At least eight people died and four others are missing after the sinking from a canoe on the Zambezi River, in the province of Sofala, in central Mozambique, the local administrator told Lusa this Monday.
“The sinking occurred because the canoe was overcrowded. (…). “Eight people lost their lives, six children and two adults,” he told Lusa Nobre dos Santos, administrator of the district of Caia, in the province of Sofala, where the accident occurred.
TO canoe carried a total of 12 peopleespecially farmers, who intended to visit their agricultural fields on the island of Moto, crossing the Zambezi River, when the boat sank around 6:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m. in Lisbon), the source said.
Four people remain missing and search operations continue, the administrator said.
“We have a boat on site, there are technicians from the National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction, there is the navy and there are district services,” he declared.
oh The accident in Caia occurs a week after the tragedy in Nampulawhere a fishing boat with more than 130 people also sank, causing the death of at least 98 people.
Death toll rises to 98 in shipwreck in northern Mozambique
According to the maritime authorities in Nampula, the fishing boat was neither authorized nor capable of carrying passengers and the people it was transporting were fleeing a cholera outbreak on the mainland bound for the island of Mozambique, and the shipwreck occurred. about a hundred meters from this coast.
oh The Council of Ministers of Mozambique declared three days of national mourning after the accidentand several of Mozambique’s partner countries expressed their solidarity in the face of the tragedy.
Source: Observadora
