Thursday’s shipwreck in the Niger River already leaves 22 dead

MADRID Nov. 30 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The shipwreck last Thursday in the Niger River of a large merchant barge has already left 22 dead, according to the latest balance provided by the Nigerian rescue authorities.

The director general of the Emergency Management Agency of the Nigerian state of Niger, Abdulahi Baba Arah, confirmed late on Friday the number of deaths and the rescue of eight people amid discrepancies over the number of occupants of the barge.

Last Friday, when the first news of the incident began to appear – possibly caused by the overloading of the barge, according to initial investigations – the Nigerian National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) put the number of occupants, most of them women who were going to work in the market in the town of Katcha.

Baba-Arah, on the other hand, has estimated to the official Nigerian news agency NAN that there were about 50 people on board the barge when it began to capsize during its passage through the Dambo-Ebuchi section of Africa’s longest river. western.