Eight family members perish after homemade boat sinks in Mozambique
At least eight people from one family have died after their homemade boat sank in central Mozambique, according to a report from Radio Mozambique on Tuesday. The sinking occurred on Monday on a tributary of the Zambezi River in Sofala province, just days after nearly 100 people, many of them children, died in another incident. Radio Mozambique cited Nobre dos Santos, administrator of the district where the latest sinking occurred, as saying that two people survived Tuesday and two were missing. The country’s public broadcaster attributed the accident to “excess weight and bad weather.” Many areas of Mozambique, a gas-rich country that is among the world’s poorest nations, can only be accessed by boats, which are often overcrowded. Last week the country declared three days of mourning after the April 8 disaster, when a ferry overcrowded with residents reportedly fleeing a feared cholera outbreak capsized off Mozambique’s northern coast, killing at least 98 people.