2024-04-08 06:12:16
At least 91 people, including many children, died this Sunday in Mozambique when the boat they were traveling in capsized off the coast of the northern province of Nampula.
“It was a small boat that was carrying 130 passengers. The boat did not have the capacity to transport these people and it sank,” said the Secretary of State for Nampula, Jaime Neto, late on Sunday.
The ship had left the Nampula town of Lunga with the intention of heading to the island of Mozambique, supposedly fleeing an outbreak of cholera, and was hit by a wave.
In this sense, it is suggested that the cause of the collapse was overcrowding. “Normally it is a fishing boat, and it was not designed to transport people,” explained the island’s administrator, Silvério Nauaito, in statements reported by the Mozambican news agency AIM.
Videos spread on social networks show dozens of bodies lying on a beach on the island. “We have confirmed the death of 91 people, who have already been identified,” Neto said, and specified that five people were rescued by emergency services.
They were escaping a cholera outbreak
According to Neto, the victims were trying to escape the area due to panic “caused by misinformation” about a cholera outbreak. The East African country has recorded 14,877 cases of the disease and 32 deaths since last October, according to the latest figures published by the Government.
It is an acute diarrheal disease caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacteria “Vibrio cholerae.”
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mozambique is currently suffering its “largest cholera outbreak in the last 25 years.” For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned last February of a serious rebound in cholera cases this January in ten countries in eastern and southern Africa, and that there is a notable risk that the disease will spread. even more causing an epidemic.
The most affected countries are Zambia and Zimbabwe, while Mozambique, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria have reported active outbreaks of cholera, with a total of 26,000 cases and 700 deaths.
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