Eleven drown in Lake Victoria
Jun 05, 2003
NAIROBI - Eleven people drowned when a small passenger boat they were travelling in collided with another and sank on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria, police in western Kenya said on Wednesday
NAIROBI - Eleven people drowned when a small passenger boat they were travelling in collided with another and sank on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria, police in western Kenya said on Wednesday.
“There were 18 passengers — 14 Ugandans and four Kenyans — in the boat travelling to Uganda, when it collided on Tuesday with a smaller fishing boat, which had unspecified fishermen on board,†Kenya’s Western Provincial Police Officer Alex Rono told AFP by telephone from the provincial capital, Kakamega.
He said the fishing boat was damaged and started sinking, forcing the fishermen to board the passenger boat, but the bigger boat also developed problems and started sinking.
“Eleven of the boat’s passengers have been confirmed dead and only six people, five Ugandans and one Kenyan, survived and managed to swim to the shore,†Rono said.
The passenger boat was travelling from Malenga Beach in Kenya to Buguru Beach in Uganda’s Bugiri district. There have been a series accidents on the lake in which scores of people have died .
The accidents have been blamed on overloading of boats and bad weather in Africa’s biggest lake shared by three countries, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
“There were 18 passengers — 14 Ugandans and four Kenyans — in the boat travelling to Uganda, when it collided on Tuesday with a smaller fishing boat, which had unspecified fishermen on board,†Kenya’s Western Provincial Police Officer Alex Rono told AFP by telephone from the provincial capital, Kakamega.
He said the fishing boat was damaged and started sinking, forcing the fishermen to board the passenger boat, but the bigger boat also developed problems and started sinking.
“Eleven of the boat’s passengers have been confirmed dead and only six people, five Ugandans and one Kenyan, survived and managed to swim to the shore,†Rono said.
The passenger boat was travelling from Malenga Beach in Kenya to Buguru Beach in Uganda’s Bugiri district. There have been a series accidents on the lake in which scores of people have died .
The accidents have been blamed on overloading of boats and bad weather in Africa’s biggest lake shared by three countries, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.