Seventeen of the 25 passengers survived the overnight accident. The boat was also ferrying charcoal, timber and cassava from the DRC’s Lake Tanganyika island of Ubwari to Rumonge town in southwestern Burundi.
“We have so far recovered the bodies of five children. Seventeen people were found alive and three others are missing,” said Gerard Ndikumana, the administrator of Rumonge.
“The Burundi navy and fishermen are still searching for the bodies of the missing people as we believe that it is practically impossible to find anyone alive 10 hours after the accident,” Ndikumana told AFP.
Boat accidents are frequent on Lake Tanganyika, a Great Rift Valley lake stretching from Burundi in the north down to Zambia in the south and straddling the DRC – Tanzania border.