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22 children dead in Nile boat accident: Sudan media

Wednesday August 15 2018
boat

Two Sudanese men get off a motorboat in the Nile River in the capital Khartoum on May 18, 2010. At least 22 children drowned on August 15, 2018 when their boat sank in the Nile while they were on their way to school. AFP PHOTO | ASHRAF SHAZLY

By AFP

At least 22 Sudanese children drowned on Wednesday when their boat sank in the Nile while they were on their way to school, official media said.

A woman also died when the vessel went down around 750 kilometres north of the capital Khartoum with more than 40 children on board, the SUNA news agency reported.

"The accident was caused by engine failure halfway across because of a strong current," it said.

Ab el-Khayr Adam Yunis, the headmaster of the Kenba High School, told the BBC’s Focus on Africa radio programme how the accident happened:

"The boat's engine broke down after it hit a tree trunk, the children panicked and leaned to one side and it capsized."

"Those who died were mostly girls. One family lost five daughters, and another three families lost two children each, and two families lost three children each."

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The headmaster said the pupils used to go to school on foot, but over the last week had been using a boat to cross a distance of about 2.5km because of flooding after heavy rain.

He said he had difficulty reporting the accident as the telephone network had been down because of the rains.

The victims' bodies have not yet been found, SUNA added.

Villagers in the region rely on wooden boats to cross the Nile.

A witness told AFP by telephone that the boat had been crossing the river against the current.

"All the families (in the area) are in mourning," added the witness, who did not want to be named.

In the deadliest Nile accident of its kind in Sudan, 50 students drowned in August 2000 when their wooden barge overturned 350 kilometres southeast of Khartoum.

In September 2014, 13 Sudanese drowned when a boat sank north of Khartoum.

The Nile, which is nearly 6,700 kilometres long, is formed by the convergence of the White Nile, which has its source in Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile, which originates in Ethiopia's Lake Tana.

The two rivers meet in Khartoum before the Nile crosses through Egypt to reach the Mediterranean.

Water levels in the Nile rise every year during the rainy season in Ethiopia, and United Nations aid agencies regularly warn of floods in Sudan between July and November.

Heavy rains in Khartoum on Wednesday morning flooded the capital's streets and electricity was cut in most neighbourhoods.

Authorities in the capital announced the suspension of classes until the end of the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha on August 25.

In August 2013, floods killed 50 people, most of them in Khartoum.

The floods, the most serious to hit the Sudanese capital in 25 years according to the UN, effected hundreds of thousands of people.

—Additional reporting by BBC.

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