At least 143 dead in DR Congo boat fire: officials

KINSHASA, DR Congo: At least 143 people died and dozens more went missing after a boat carrying fuel caught fire and capsized in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said Friday.

Hundreds of passengers were crowded onto a wooden boat on the Congo River near Mbandaka, capital of Equateur Province, on Tuesday when an explosion caused by a cooking fire ignited a larger blaze, according to Josephine-Pacifique Lokumu, head of a delegation of national deputies from the region.

“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.

She said the total number of passengers was unknown but that it was in the “hundreds”.

A local civil society leader, Joseph Lokondo, who said he helped bury the bodies, put the “provisional death toll at 145: some burned, others drowned”.

A vast Central African nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo suffers from a lack of practicable roads.

As a result travel often occurs on lakes, the Congo River and its tributaries, where shipwrecks are frequent and the death tolls often heavy.

In October 2023, at least 47 people died after a boat navigating the Congo sank in Equateur province.

More than 20 people died in October last year when a boat capsized on Lake Kivu in eastern DRC, according to local authorities.