At least 143 Killed After Congo Boat Catches Fire, Capsizes

April 19, 2025 | 04:39 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - At least 143 people died in the Democratic Republic of Congo after a boat caught fire and capsized, media reports citing local officials said Friday, as reported by Arab News.

The boat was carrying as many as 500 passengers, including women and children, when it capsized in the Congo River located in the northwestern region of the country on Tuesday, according to reports.

Hundreds of passengers were crammed into a wooden boat on the Congo River in northwestern DRC when the fire broke out, according to Josephine-Pacifique Lokumu, head of a delegation of national deputies from the region.

The disaster occurred near Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province, at the confluence of the Ruki River and the vast Congo river - the deepest in the world.

“A first group of 131 bodies were found on Wednesday, with a further 12 fished out on Thursday and Friday. Several of them are charred,” Lokumu said.

Joseph Lokondo, a local civil society leader who said he helped bury the bodies, put the “provisional death toll at 145: some burned, others drowned.”

Lokumu said the fire was caused by a fuel explosion triggered by a fire from a stove on board.

“A woman lit the embers for cooking. The fuel, which was not far away, exploded, killing many children and women,” he said.

The total number of passengers on board the sinking vessel is unknown, but Lokumu said it was in the “hundreds.”

Some survivors were rescued and hospitalized, Lokondo said. But as of Friday, he added, “several families were still without news of their loved ones.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast Central African country, suffers from a lack of practicable roads. As a result, travel is often on lakes, the Congo River and its tributaries, where shipwrecks are common and the death toll is often high.

The absence of passenger lists often complicates search operations. In October 2023, at least 47 people died after a boat sailing in Congo sank in Equateur.

More than 20 people died in October last year when a boat capsized on Lake Kivu in eastern Congo, according to local authorities. Another shipwreck Lake Kivu claimed around 100 lives in 2019.

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