

August 16, 2018 (KHARTOUM) - 22 children and a woman have been killed when their boat sank on the Nile River north of the Sudanese capital on Wednesday morning.

The drowning accident took place at al-Buhaira locality where the children used to take the boat to cross the Nile before to reach their school.

The official Sudan’s news agency SUNA reported that the boat was carrying more than 40 pupils, also the bodies of the victims were not found so far. Civil defence forces in the state and Abu Hamad municipality arrived at the area of the accident to participate in the search operations.

Reports say the boat sank due to a technical failure in the middle of the swollen Nile river, while credible reports say the failure occurred after a collision with a rock or possibly a palm trunk that turned it upside down.

The Sudanese presidency issued a condolence message to the victims of the tragic accident.

The Nile river is an important transport route but the country doesn’t have safe boats and barges.

In Khartoum, the Sudanese authorities issued a warning saying the water levels were rising on the Blue Nile and that urged people to be wary of flooding after two weeks of heavy rainfall that killed several people across the country.

(ST)