At least 41 people have died and 49 others were rescued after a commercial vessel capsized on Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The boat went down near the eastern Congolese village of Mapera while carrying approximately 100 passengers along with heavy cargo.
Search operations remain underway to locate missing travelers.
Norris Mulongoyi, the provincial transport minister for Tanganyika province, confirmed the rescue efforts and noted that the vessel was en route from the Tanzanian port of Kigoma to the city of Kalemie in eastern Congo. The vessel foundered late Thursday.
Annie Moyoni, a survivor, recounted that passengers were awoken around one in the morning to discover the vessel tilting severely to one side before it plunged into the water.
Authorities have not formally determined the cause of the disaster, though riverine and lake journeys across the nation frequently suffer from dangerous overloading and an absence of standard life-saving gear. For tens of millions in the DRC, water transport represents the primary viable link between isolated provinces due to a severe deficit of paved roads.
The sinking marks the second fatal incident on the Kigoma-Kalemie corridor in less than four weeks. On August 28, the vessel MV Pacifique caught fire and exploded while taking on fuel at Kigoma port, leaving six crew members dead and one unaccounted for, while a separate wooden boat accident in central Congo claimed at least 20 students returning from examinations in July.
