Congo ferry death toll rises

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Rescuers have recovered seven bodies amid fears that the death toll in the Congo ferry sinking could reach 150.

The moored vessel sank at the lakeside town of Goma in eastern Congo as passengers rushed aboard to escape a heavy downpour, officials said on Friday.

Officials fear there were at least 50 and as many as 150 people on board when the MV Musaka sank on Thursday evening.

The weight of luggage already on board, as well as that of passengers and well-wishers who scrambled to get out of the rain, far exceeded the capacity of the vessel, Moise Nyarugabo said.

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Nyarugabo, a spokesman for the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy, which controls Goma and its surrounding region, said: "People jumped off the boat and others swam to safety or were rescued before the vessel sunk completely."

Jean-Pierre Lola, another RCD official, said the victims were not quick enough to get off and many remain trapped inside the vessel.

On Friday, 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.

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 from the harbour shore.

A few people on deck managed to jump in the sea and swim to safety, but most of the passengers were trapped inside the boat as it sank beneath the waters.

A crowd of about 500 people rushed to the harbour as news of the disaster spread, including distraught relatives and friends of the victims, who were crying and wailing.

"It was unbearable," said one rebel official. "I could not stand seeing this human cemetery, I had to go."

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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Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement
U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Congo Defense Fund (CDF)

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