An unconfirmed number of people that may be in the hundreds drowned in the Nile River on Sunday when a boat taking them out of the city of Malakal overturned.
“We have not counted them yet. It will take our community three days to collect all the bodies and to bury them,” said an eyewitness and the secretary of Akoka County, Majok James Chol.
The local official told Radio Tamazuj that the boat was going downriver from Malakal toward Lelo after panic swept through Malakal owing to rumors of an imminent attack by forces loyal to former vice president Riek Machar.
People who boarded the boat were seeking a safe place outside of Malakal, which already experienced several days of clashes in late December. According to Majok James, the iron boat taking the passengers across the river was used for commercial purposes and had two Honda engines.
The boat would normally carry between 50 and 80 people. “The boat was overloaded with hundreds of people, nobody counted them. When they passed our area we saw the boat starting to tip,” said the official.
He continued: “People grabbed the sides but when the boat capsized, only two people and the boat driver managed to reach the banks alive. This part of the Nile is wide and deep and has a strong current.”
“The boat sank immediately. Most of the passengers seemed to be families with women and children, ” said the witness.
Baliet and Doleib
It is not clear how close the opposition forces have approached to Malakal. The return of an SPLA convoy to the city on Sunday morning was mistaken as an attacking force, sparking panic among civilians in the city.
There has been significant displacement from outlying areas of Malakal to the east and south, owing to the advance of the opposition forces.
Fighting started on Saturday at a garrison in Doleib Hill, outside Malakal, with additional clashes reported in Baliet County, where people who do not belong to Machar’s Nuer tribe are running toward Malakal.
File photo: A boat on the Nile near Fashoda, October 2013 (Radio Tamazuj)