DRC: Congo River Boat Fire Kills At Least 143, Dozens Missing
Officials claimed Friday that a boat carrying fuel caught fire and crashed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 143 people and leaving dozens missing.
Hundreds of passengers were crammed into a wooden boat on the Congo River in northwest DRC when the fire broke out on Tuesday, according to Josephine-Pacifique Lokumu, the head of a delegation of regional national deputies.
The calamity struck near Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province, at the junction of the Ruki and the massive Congo River, the world’s deepest.
“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 told AFP.
🇨🇩🕊️❗️JUST IN: At least 148 people have died and hundreds remain missing after a motorized wooden boat, caught fire and capsized on the Congo River on Tuesday. Officials say the fire began when a woman was cooking on board.
— MoloOSINT🎖️ (@44Molo) April 19, 2025
🔹Many victims, including children, drowned after… pic.twitter.com/9CtOf6wT4h
According to Joseph Lokondo, a local civil society activist who helped bury the remains, the “provisional death toll is 145: some burned, others drowned”.
According to Lokumu, the blaze was triggered by a fuel explosion sparked by an onboard cooking fire.
“A woman lit the embers for cooking. The fuel, which was not far away, exploded, killing many children and women”, she said.
Videos circulating on social media showed flames shooting from a big boat stranded far from shore, with smoke pouring from the wreckage and people on smaller vessels watching.
The precise number of passengers on board the tragic vessel was unknown, but Lokumu estimated it to be in the “hundreds”.
Lokondo reported that some people were rescued and sent to the hospital.
However, he said that “several families were still without news of their loved ones” on Friday.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a huge Central African nation spanning 2.3 million square kilometers (900,000 square miles), suffers from a shortage of passable roads, and planes serve just a few cities and villages.
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As a result, people frequently travel on lakes, the Congo River (Africa’s second longest river after the Nile), and its winding tributaries, where shipwrecks are common and mortality tolls are high.
The persistent lack of passenger lists frequently hinders search activities.
In October 2023, at least 47 people died when a boat traveling the Congo sank in Equateur.
According to local authorities, a boat sank on Lake Kivu in eastern DRC in October of last year, killing more than 20 persons.
Another shipwreck on Lake Kivu killed approximately 100 lives in 2019.
DRC: Congo River Boat Fire Kills At Least 143, Dozens Missing
