MAIDUGURI (Dispatches) - The death toll from an overloaded boat that capsized in a remote part of Nigeria’s north central region, and a fishing boat carrying migrants trying to reach Europe capsized and sank off Greece on Wednesday have risen to more than 180, police and officials said on Wednesday, in one of the worst such disasters in recent years.
The wooden boat was ferrying people to Kwara state across a river from neighboring Niger state after a wedding ceremony when it capsized on Monday night.
Kwara state police spokesperson Ajayi Okasanmi told medis on Wednesday that 103 people had been confirmed dead.
It was not immediately clear how many people were in the boat, but some residents put the figure at more than 200.
Alhaji Bologi, the emir of Patigi district which includes the villages from where the passengers had lived, said he had received information that 150 people had drowned while 53 had been rescued.
Fearing abductions by armed gangs on the roads, many Nigerians use boats to travel. Overcrowding and poor maintenance are responsible for most boat accidents on Nigerian waterways.
In Greece, authorities said, leaving at least 79 dead and many more missing in one of the worst disasters of its kind this year.
Coast guard, navy and merchant vessels and aircraft fanned out for a vast search-and-rescue operation set to continue overnight. It was unclear how many passengers might still be in the water or trapped in the vessel, but some initial reports suggested hundreds of people may have been on board.
Authorities said 104 people have been rescued so far after the boat sank overnight in international waters some 75 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Greece’s southern Peloponnese peninsula. The spot is close to the deepest area of the Mediterranean Sea — and such depths could hamper any effort to locate a sunken metal vessel.
Twenty-five survivors were hospitalized with symptoms of hypothermia.
At the southern port of Kalamata, around 70 exhausted survivors bedded down in sleeping bags and blankets provided by rescuers in a large warehouse, while outside paramedics set up tents for anyone who needed first aid.
Katerina Tsata, head of a Red Cross volunteer group in Kalamata, said the migrants were also given psychological support.
“They suffered a very heavy blow, both physical and mental,” she said.
The Greek coast guard said 79 bodies have been recovered so far. It said the survivors included 30 people from Egypt, 10 from Pakistan, 35 from Syria and 2 Palestinians.
The Italy-bound boat is believed to have sailed from the Tobruk area in eastern Libya. That country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Human traffickers have benefited from the ensuing instability, and made Libya one of the main departure points for people attempting to reach Europe on smuggler’s boats.
The migration route from North Africa to Italy through the central Mediterranean is the deadliest in the world, according to the United Nations migration agency, known as IOM, which has recorded more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances there since 2014.