At 5 a.m. on Wednesday, August 2, 2023, a boat loaded with charcoal, fresh food and silver fish went down in the Ugandan waters of Lake Victoria. Police confirmed 20 dead. Nine people were pulled out alive, and five were still missing.
The boat was bound for Wakiso District on the mainland from islands in Kalangala District. Patrick Onyango, spokesperson for the Kampala Metropolitan Police, said it was “allegedly” carrying 34 people. Rescue teams from the Police Marines, the UPDF Fisheries Protection Unit and the local community were searching the water for the missing.
Police blamed overloading and bad weather. John Wandera, a fisherman who helped with the rescue, told Anadolu that strong winds capsized the vessel. Relatives of the victims gathered at the Kasenyi landing site in Wakiso to wait for news.
Calls for more rescue cover
Helen Nakimuli, a member of parliament for Kalangala, said people had been told again and again to stop traveling at night in poor weather. “Instead, they overload boats with cargo and passengers,” she told Xinhua. She also wanted the government to open more rescue centers on the lake so marine police are close by when boats go down.
Police asked anyone traveling on the water to wear life jackets and keep their vessels from being overloaded.
This was not the only accident that summer. Five people died on July 5 when a boat capsized in Mukono district, and at least six died last month in two separate capsizings on the lake.
Lake Victoria, shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, covers about 70,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of Ireland. Boat disasters there are common and are usually put down to crowding and poor weather. In November 2018, at least 32 people died when a pleasure boat carrying more than 90 revelers sank in bad weather. Two months earlier, hundreds died when the MV Nyerere ferry sank on the Tanzanian side.
Sources
- 20 killed after boat capsize in Lake Victoria in Uganda
- Lake Victoria boat accident kills at least 20 in Uganda; several missing
- TRT Afrika – 20 killed in Uganda boat accident
