LAKE ALBERT CLAIMS MORE LIVES
(Posted 23rd March 2014)
News are coming in from Lake Albert that an overloaded lake boat, carrying reportedly nearly 100 local travellers, capsized during a storm yesterday. While initial feedback speaks of over 40 rescued from the treacherous waters, including the boatman who was promptly arrested by police for alleged overloading of his boat, dozens more are still missing or have been found dead. Most of those recovered so far were according to emerging details young children. This is the latest in a series of lake disasters involving local lake boats, prompting renewed calls for better training of the boat crews and stricter supervision of safety regulations.
Uganda’s main two lakes, Lake Victoria which is shared with Kenya and Tanzania and Lake Albert, which is shared with the DR Congo, often experience sudden violent storms and boats, when caught up in such storms while still on the water, regularly go under.
Local and international NGO’s and government have worked hard in recent years to improve safety standards and insist on boats only taking on board the number of passengers they are licensed for, but boat owners habitually ignore such rules to make a quick buck and enforcement on the main landing sites is not all that strict and entirely absent on the less frequented landing points. Additionally do not all boats carry life vests and those which do many times do not have enough for all the passengers they take on board.
It could not be established where the boat came from and where it was heading to. Lake Albert has in recent years emerged as major focal point for oil exploration on the Ugandan side of the lake and is also of key touristic importance as the Nile delta, where the Victoria Nile empties into Lake Albert before emerging as the Albert Nile a few kilometres onwards, forms part of the Murchisons Falls National Park.
