Night collision on the Congo River kills at least 30; dozens still missing

KINSHASA: At least 30 people were killed and dozens are still missing after two vessels collided on the Congo River at night in Équateur province in north-western DR Congo, Congolese officials told the Associated Press on Monday. The two boats crashed into each other while navigating the river in darkness, officials said, in a stretch of water where river transport is often the only connection between isolated communities. The number of people on board the two vessels has not been confirmed, and rescue teams were continuing to search the river for survivors and the missing. Night travel on the Congo is notoriously dangerous. Roads across the region are few and in poor condition, forcing millions of people to depend on cheap wooden vessels that are routinely overloaded and make their journeys after dark, when any rescue becomes nearly impossible. Life jackets on such trips are rare. The collision is the latest in a grim and recurring catalogue of river disasters in the central African nation. Congolese authorities have repeatedly blamed such accidents on improper loading and night navigation, and President Félix Tshisekedi has ordered passengers on river vessels to wear life jackets. But on a river system as vast as the Congo's, enforcement is thin — and civil society groups have long accused the government of negligence in regulating river transport. The Congo is Africa's second-longest river and the lifeline of millions: in Équateur province, as in much of the country's interior, the river is at once a road, a market and a water supply. Those on board on Monday were ordinary Congolese — traders, workers and families for whom the boat is the only affordable way to travel. Boat accidents have become increasingly frequent in DR Congo as more people abandon the few available roads for cheaper river transport. Each tragedy prompts the same official promises — tighter regulation, mandatory life jackets, a crackdown on night travel — and each promise has faded before the next hull goes down. Officials said the cause of Monday's collision was not immediately clear. Rescue and recovery operations were continuing.