Boat was taking passengers on pleasure cruise when it capsized close to shore

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

At least 30 people have died in a boat accident on Lake Victoria in Uganda.

Diving teams were retrieving bodies from the lake on Sunday after the boat overturned and sank at about 7pm on Saturday night.

Senior police officer Zurah Ganyana said 27 people were rescued overnight. More than 90 passengers were onboard, leading officials to believe the death toll will rise.

Ganyana said the boat was in poor condition, had been grounded for some time and did not have a valid licence to operate.

The boat was taking passengers on a pleasure cruise on Lake Victoria, a popular weekend activity for young people in Kampala, when it capsized close to shore.

Early on Sunday, a police helicopter hovered low over the spot where the boat sank as a team of divers searched for bodies. As the death toll rose, so did the crowd of onlookers at a beach abutting a quiet village outside Kampala.

Police carried victims in tarpaulins and hauled them into a waiting truck, occasionally drawing loud wails from some of the onlookers. One young woman, seeing a victim she apparently recognised, collapsed and was taken to hospital.

Witnesses who were there on Saturday night said they heard people calling for help as they tried to stay afloat and others tried to swim ashore.

“They were shouting ‘Help us! Help us!’ and the boat was sinking very quickly,” said Sam Tukei, one of several local men who used fishermen’s canoes to rescue people. “By the time the police came we had saved many people.”

One reason many people died so close to shore was likely “intoxication”, said Asuman Mugenyi, the national director of police operations. Citing the accounts of some survivors, he said there there were life jackets onboard the doomed vessel that passengers neglected to wear.

The boat’s passengers, in a party mood halfway through their journey, most likely panicked when the vessel started to sink, he said.

The vessel is believed to have been on a routine weekend cruise that is popular among young Ugandans. Victims include the couple who owned the boat, according to Ganyana.

Boat accidents are increasingly common on East Africa’s major lakes including Lake Victoria, which is surrounded by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

More than 200 people were killed in a Tanzanian ferry disaster in September, with officials saying it had been dangerously overcrowded.