A wooden cargo boat, identified as ‘Godbless Dickson’, laden with cargo and over 64 passengers and crew, exploded and was engulfed with flames, leaving 20 dead in the waterways in Bayelsa State, south-south Nigeria.

The tragic incident occurred on Wednesday along the Ezetu 1 community in the Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa.

Musa Mohammed, the police spokesperson in Bayelsa said that 20 people have been so far confirmed dead, while rescue efforts by the Marine Police unit were still ongoing.

The ill-fated cargo boat, laden with farm produce from a rural settlement, was en route to Swali market in Yenagoa.

Ogoniba Ipigansi, chairperson of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, Bayelsa Chapter, also confirmed the incident in a telephone interview with a NAN Correspondent on Thursday.

He said that a rescue team of the union, consisting of two speedboats, had been dispatched to the scene to assist the passengers on board.

Also, he said that the exact number of casualties was yet to be ascertained, as the rescue was still underway and several people on board were yet to be accounted for.

A speedboat operator, Augustine Amayoro, who participated in rescue efforts, said he rescued 10 persons from the scene, leaving other passengers stranded in the nearby fishing camp.

The wooden cargo boats were exempted from the state government’s ban on night navigation on waterways.

Because of the slow pace of navigation, the cargo boats set sail a day ahead of the targeted weekly market day of Thursdays when farm produce flood the Swali waterside in Yenagoa.

The chairperson of the Southern Ijaw Local Government, Target Segibo, who bemoaned the loss of 20 persons in the incident, described the disaster as regrettable.

He called for concerted efforts by stakeholders to strengthen safety regulations in the marine transport sector.

PT