Wedding Boat Capsizes in Nigeria, Killing Hundreds of Passengers

A wedding boat capsized in northern Nigeria, killing hundreds of passengers and prompting search and rescue efforts
Police spokesman Okasannmi Ajayi said on Tuesday that they have so far recorded 103 deaths and more than 100 rescued
Ajayi added the search and rescue operations were still underway, which means that the numbers would likely rise

A wedding boat capsized in northern Nigeria, killing off hundreds of passengers and prompting search and rescue operations for any potential survivors.

Authorities said that the wedding boat capsized on Monday while it was on the Niger River located in the Pategi district of Kwara state which is close to neighboring Niger. The state's police spokesman Okasanmi Ajayi on Tuesday said that they have so far recorded 103 deaths and more than 100 rescued from the boating accident.

Wedding Boat Capsizes in Nigeria

Ajayi added that search and rescue operations were still underway, which means that the death toll, and hopefully the number of rescued, are likely to rise. The victims of the boating accident included women and children as the vessel was coming back from a wedding in the village of Egboti in Niger state, said Usman Ibrahim, as per Aljazeera.

The resident added that people who were on the boat were supposed to take their bikes to their various communities when they disembarked. He added that the vessel was carrying more than 100 people at the time that the accident happened.

He said that the majority of the victims drowned because the wedding boat sank at about 3:00 a.m. and not many people were even aware of the incident until a few hours later. Ibrahim noted that authorities were still searching for some dead bodies.

The local daily Nigerian Tribune reported that the boat's passengers were originally from the Kpada, Egbu, and Gakpan villages in Kwara. Ahmed Idris, from Aljazeera, said that what they were hearing from various sources in the area was that at least 64 people came from one village and an additional 40 were from another.

Accident in Dark Waters

A traditional chief in Kpada, Abdul Gana Lukpada, said that some people who were found to be stranded wedding guests were forced to cross the river from neighboring Egboti village using a boat after heavy rains caused the roads in the area to flood, according to CNN.

Lukpada estimated that the vessel was carrying up to 300 passengers before it hit a tree trunk that caused it to sink. He added that there was a marriage ceremony nearby and said that the terrain of the community was terrible when it rains.

The chief noted that rain followed the end of the ceremony, which means that the attendees who got there via motorcycles would not be able to ride them out. He said that the tree trunk that the boat hit was hidden in the water and split the vessel into two.

The place where the incident happened, the Niger River, which is roughly 2,600 miles long, acts as a key regional trade route. It originates in Guinea and flows in a vast arc northeast into the Sahel before going to the Atlantic through the Niger Delta, said the New York Times.