KINSHASA:
At least 143 people died and dozens more went missing after a boat carrying fuel caught fire and capsized in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said on Friday.
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 disaster occurred near Mbandaka, capital of Equateur Province, at the confluence of the Ruki and the vast Congo river — the world’s deepest.
“A first group of 131 bodies were found on Wednesday, with a further 12 fished out on Thursday and Friday. Several of them are charred,” Lokumu told AFP.
