More than 100 people, including children, have died and over 20 others are missing after a ferry capsized off the northern coast of Mozambique, the southern African nation’s president, Filipe Nyusi, said on Monday.
The makeshift boat was carrying 130 passengers from Lunga in Nampula province to Mozambique Island on Sunday when the accident happened, Lourenco Machado, an administrator of the country’s Maritime Transport Institute (INTRASMAR), told state television.
According to the official, preliminary reports show that a tidal wave struck the “overloaded” fishing vessel, which is not licensed to transport people.
Some of the passengers were reportedly fleeing the mainland due to misinformation about a cholera outbreak, according to the secretary of state for Nampula Province, Jaime Neto. Ten people have been rescued.
“I lost my brother’s children, of my second mother [step-mother]. Because of this sinking of the ferry there in Quissanga, which was leaving Lunga, to come here, because of cholera,” said a local named Amade Juma, according to African news.
The former Portuguese colony is grappling with a cholera outbreak, with government data showing almost 15,000 cases and 32 deaths recorded since last October. Nampula, where the ferry sank, is said to be the worst-hit region, recording 5,084 cases and 12 deaths as of Sunday.
In a statement on Monday, President Nyusi said he was saddened by the boat accident and directed the country’s transport minister to visit the island to “provide help to the survivors” and to investigate the “reasons that gave rise to this tragedy.”
