On May 9, 15 children lost their lives, and several others were rescued when their overloaded boat capsized.
According to Shagari district political administrator Aliyu Abubakar, the children were on a journey to collect firewood, on the Shagari River in northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto state.
The boat capsized in the middle of the river. Local rescue teams recovered 15 bodies, including 13 girls and two boys, who were later buried in the village. Out of the 36 passengers on board, divers managed to rescue 21 people.
Such boat accidents are unfortunately too common in Nigeria, often due to overloaded boats, insufficient vessel maintenance, heavy flooding during the rainy season, and inadequate safety regulations.
This incident is not unique to the region. In April of the previous year, a similar accident on the same river led to the loss of 29 lives, including five children, from the neighboring Gidan Magana village in Sokoto, who were also gathering firewood.
In October 2022, at least 76 people died when their boat capsized during extreme flooding during the rainy season in southeast Anambra State. In May 2021, a river disaster took place when a boat carrying passengers to the market broke apart, resulting in over 150 people missing and only 20 rescued.
The Nigerian waterways authority has tried to prevent such incidents by banning night-time sailing on rivers and criminalizing the overloading of vessels. However, these rules are often ignored by boat operators.
