At least 21 dead in ferry sinking in northern Sudan’s River Nile state

KHARTOUM — At least 21 people have drowned, while others remain missing, after a passenger ferry sank on the Nile in northern Sudan’s River Nile State, local authorities said on Thursday.”Twenty-one bodies have been recovered from the boat that sank on Wednesday,” the River Nile State government said in a brief statement.It added that search operations for missing persons are ongoing, with civil defense teams continuing rescue efforts.Police Major General Qurashi Hussein, Sudan’s assistant director general of civil defense, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that six or seven people had been rescued, while efforts were continuing to recover about a dozen people believed missing.The boat was traveling between Tayba Al-Khawad and Deim Al-Qarai villages, north of Shendi in River Nile State, when it capsized due to high waves on Wednesday evening, according to the civil defense official.The wooden passenger ferry had been carrying 30-35 passengers, including women, elderly people and children, when it sank, Hussein said.Hussein added that teams had been sent from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to assist with the operation, with all civil defence teams in River Nile State being mobilised to search for the missing.“Our teams are still searching for bodies of those who drowned in the Nile,” he said.The Sudan Doctors Network, an association of Sudanese medical professionals, said in a post on X that the tragedy highlighted “the fragility of river transport” in the country and “the absence of basic safety requirements”.It also claimed that a slow response from local authorities and civil defence teams in the critical initial hours following the sinking had “exacerbated the scale of the disaster”. — Agencies