A boat mishap in Gummi town, the headquarters of the Gummi Local Government Area of Zamfara State, claimed forty persons who were travelling through the river.
A source who was an eyewitness Abubakar Muhammad, to the incident explained that victims of the boat mishap was on their way to thief farms when the incudienttook in the early hours of Saturday.
He disclosed that the boat had 53 farmers on board, and only twelve people had successfully been rescued alive. He noted that the caption of the boat and another 41 persons were confirmed dead by the villagers. He stated that at the time of the incident, he was close to the river in the town.
The source noted that the boat after it capsized, sank into the river with all the passengers, which made it highly difficult to rescue the victims.
The source nted that the vilagers trie their best to rescue the victims but only 12 persons were successfully rescued by the divers who dis there best. He noted that the person who were dead were taken out of the water the by the villagers who did their best.
“We did our best to rescue them, but unfortunately, we were only able to bring out 12 persons alive, including the captain of the boat.
A senior executive of the Gummi Local Government Area, Alhaji Na’Allah Musa, confirmed the news to the press he exapliend that the boat was overloaded which caused the tragedy.
He noted that before takeoff, the caption had told the passengers that some of them must come down, but they all insisted on travelling with the boat because no one wanted to be left behind. The driver, according to the sole administrator of the local decided to start the trip after all his efforts to the reduce the number of passengers failed.
He noted four of the passengers were able to swim out of the river while others were rescued. He noted that he does not have the actual number of casualties but disclosed that the number of victims who lost their lives was much. He noted that efforts were still ongoing to help rescue the other missing passengers.
