Eleven drown after Sudanese boat sinks

August 7, 2009

Twenty-nine persons survived when the engine stopped on a boat near Islanj Island, about north of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, on August 4, 2009. Eleven of the forty passengers trying to cross the Nile River drowned when the boat sank.

"Police said the accident was caused by the severity of the current and the overloading of the boat," a police statement said. "People on the island said they had not seen an incident like it for more than 40 years."

Forty farmers, along with their goods, had boarded the boat, overloading it. State ministers from Khartoum, the commissioner of Karrary district, and the police visited Islanj Island following the accident.