At least 18 people have been confirmed dead after a boat capsized in the Far North region of Cameroon, a local official reported on Friday. The incident occurred on Thursday when the boat, carrying passengers to a market, overturned in the flooded waterways leading to the Darak district, an island in the Lake Chad Basin near the Chad border. Seasonal flooding in the region has made boat travel the only practical means of transportation for locals, intensifying the impact of such accidents.
Mamat Zarma, the divisional officer of Darak, explained that strong winds rocked the wooden boat, causing it to capsize. So far, the bodies of five women and 13 men have been recovered, though the total number of passengers on board remains uncertain. Search and rescue efforts continue to locate any other missing individuals.
This tragedy follows a similar incident two weeks ago in the nearby district of Goulfey, where a locally-made canoe carrying around 30 people capsized, killing four and leaving several others unaccounted for.
The region has experienced unusually heavy seasonal rains, which have led to widespread flooding across much of West and Central Africa, including Cameroon’s Logone and Chari division, which encompasses both Darak and Goulfey. The flooding has left locals reliant on boats for transportation, but overcrowding, caused by a shortage of canoes, remains a significant factor in many boat-related accidents.
As the rainy season comes to an end, the broader region continues to face the aftermath of the floods, which have claimed over 1,520 lives, affected more than 7.2 million people, and submerged nearly a million hectares of agricultural land, according to the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA. The ongoing devastation has left communities struggling to recover and rebuild.
