At least 143 people have died and many others are missing after a passenger boat caught fire and capsized on the Congo River near Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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The wooden vessel, which was carrying hundreds of passengers and containers of fuel, went up in flames after a cooking fire sparked an explosion, according to Josephine-Pacifique Lokumu, a lawmaker from the region. “A woman lit a fire to cook, and it ignited the fuel nearby,” she said.
Rescue workers recovered 131 bodies on Wednesday and another 12 in the following days. Local civil society leader Joseph Lokondo said the provisional death toll could rise further, with some victims burnt beyond recognition and others believed to have drowned.
Mass funerals took place on Friday in Mbandaka, supported by Red Cross volunteers. Coffins were taken to a public park where grieving relatives paid their last respects. Some families claimed their loved ones’ bodies directly after they were recovered.
Authorities are still unsure how many people were on board, making it difficult to estimate the number of missing. A humanitarian source involved in the rescue said hopes of finding more survivors were slim.
This tragedy adds to a long list of similar incidents. In October 2023, a boat disaster in the same province killed at least 47 people. Another accident on Lake Kivu in 2022 left more than 20 dead, while a 2019 shipwreck on the same lake claimed around 100 lives.
