Sharjah 24 – AFP: Nigerian rescue workers had on Thursday pulled three dozen bodies from the water after an overcrowded river boat sank leaving more than 150 people missing and feared drowned.
Survivors and officials said only 20 people were rescued on Wednesday when the wooden boat ferrying passengers to a market broke apart and sank between central Niger state and Wara in northwest Kebbi state.
"Five bodies were recovered yesterday and 31 bodies today, and the recovery operation is ongoing. More bodies are expected to be found," Abubakar Shehu, a local official supervising the rescue operation, told AFP.
"The bodies are bloated and now coming to the surface which makes it easy to spot them."
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday called the mishap "devastating" after the country's inland waterways authority said only 20 people had been rescued and another 156 were still missing.
"When the boat broke into two, I wondered if people were sinking into the water," survivor Usman Umar told AFP, standing by the river bank in Ngaski area in Kebbi.
"The boat capacity was something up to 150 people, us survivors can't be even 20."
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