Another boat mishap has
occurred in Kokoli village in
Borgu Local Government Area of
Niger state with 18 people
feared dead.
This tragedy came barely six days
after the boat mishap in Malale
village along River Niger in the
LGA in which 26 lives were lost.
Our correspondent gathered that
10 corpses from the latest
tragedy had being recovered.
It was also gathered that, out of
the 18 feared dead, 16 were
women.
It was gathered that the boat
capsized while conveying traders
from the weekly Thursday
market from Kokoli village to
Ulakami at about 4pm.
The boat was said to be carrying
no fewer than 80 passengers
when it suddenly broke into two
half way into their journey.
One of the survivors, called Umar
Ibrahim, told newsmen that they
were only half way into their
journey when the boat suddenly
split into two with the
passengers drowning.
According to him, “we had just
gone to the middle of the
journey which is about 10
kilometres when the boat split
into two and people started
screaming and falling into
water”.
He said because of his
experience in swimming, he was
able to swim to safety and also
able to rescue about 10 people,
mainly women and children.
The survivor said the casualties
would have been more if not for
the rescue operation by the
captain of the boat and other
passengers in the boat who rose
to the occasion by rescuing other
passengers who could not swim.
The village head, Mohammed
Garba, confirmed that after
frantic search, 18 people were
ascertained dead and recovered.