At least eight dead when a boat with more than 200 people on board capsizes in north-central Nigeria

MADRID 29 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Nigerian authorities have confirmed that a barge with more than 200 people on board capsized this past Thursday in the Niger River and that since then they have only been able to recover the lifeless bodies of eight people, so dozens of the occupants are now same disappeared.

The spokesman for the Nigerian National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Suleman Makama, explained that the incident occurred when the barge was heading to a market and, before reaching its destination, it began to capsize during its passage through the section between Dambo-Ebuchi, for reasons not yet clarified.

Makama has indicated that most of the victims were women on their way to work in the Katcha market in Niger state, but has resisted giving a provisional death toll beyond the eight recovered so far.

NIWA is waiting to receive clearance from security forces before issuing an official statement providing full details of the incident, the spokesperson added in statements to the Nigerian newspaper ‘Punch’.