Hope fades for Congo ferry victims

GOMA, Congo -- Attempts to rescue up to 100 people trapped in a capsized ferry in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been suspended amid accusations that recovery equipment is inadequate.

Divers called a halt to operations on Friday after oxygen tanks had run out while the United Nations' Mission in the DRC has been called on to help lift the sunken ferry stranded near the shore of the lakeside town of Goma.

Only 19 bodies, including three children, have been recovered out of an estimated 100 who crammed onto the ferry on Thursday evening.

Three days of mourning has been declared in the rebel-held territory.

The ferry MV Musaka capsized in Lake Kivu in central Africa's Great Lakes region after passengers as well as their relatives and friends surged onto the boat to escape a heavy downpour.

The ferry was already heavily laden with cargo including sacks of beans, sugar and clothes and barrels of palm oil.

Some passengers on deck managed to jump overboard and swim ashore but the bulk remained trapped.

Thousands of onlookers watched from the hillsides, some screaming with grief, as divers or Red Cross workers brought a body ashore.

"Up to 100 people may have died," Jean-Pierre Kisanga, spokesman for the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a rebel movement which controls much of eastern Congo, told Reuters.

Rescue workers used trucks and chains to haul the wreck into shallower water, allowing work to begin on cutting out bodies trapped in a section of the red and white painted hull visible above the surface.

But the two cranes brought in to try to lift the vessel proved too weak.

Rescue workers struggled to moor the sunken ferry to prevent it from being dragged into deeper water by currents sweeping Lake Kivu, one of a string of volcanic lakes that stretches along Congo's eastern border.

One onlooker, who had a relative aboard the vessel, said the accident had been "avoidable."

Real estate agent Jess Ngunza added: "I am filled with regret. The accident was avoidable if sufficient controls were in place."

He deplored the lack of safety equipment and precautions.

Goma's Mayor Francois Xavier Nzabata Maseka told reporters: "We are expecting to get help from MONUC (the U.N. Mission in the DRC) to lift the sunken ferry and then it would be possible to cut the vessel open and get the bodies."

MONUC has already sent divers to the rescue operation.

The ferry had been due to make its way south to the town of Bukavu on Lake Kivu, but capsized by the jetty, just 30 feet (10 metres) from the harbour shore.

The ferries, which ply the Great Lakes region of central Africa, are routinely overcrowded and poorly maintained.

In May 1996, a Tanzanian ferry capsized on the much larger Lake Victoria, several hundred miles to the east of Lake Kivu.

Only 114 people survived out of an estimated 1,000 people on board.

The people of Goma, which lies close to the Rwandan border and is the headquarters of the RCD -- a rebel movement which took up arms in 1998 against the government of then President Laurent Kabila, with substantial Rwandan help -- have little choice but to take the ferry.

The road south to Bukavu is notoriously unsafe, with vehicles regularly hijacked by armed militia groups which lurk in the forests and hills of the area.

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