8 November 2009
The corpses of the 40 victims of the Oct. 30 boat mishap at Bukuro village in Baruteen Local Government Area of Kwara State have been buried at the bank of river Nano.
The Chairman of Baruteen Local Government, Alhaji Aliyu Salihu, who disclosed this in Ilorin on Monday, said none of the victims was a Nigerian.
Salihu said the victims were given a mass burial, adding that efforts were still being made to recover the bodies of 15 passengers, who were declared missing.
The chairman said all the victims were from Benin Republic and that the president of that country, who paid a visit to the area, had promised to donate four new boats to the people of the area.
He said the Kwara Government had also sent a delegation to the community to investigate the cause of the accident.
Salihu said the accident occurred when a boat conveying primary school children developed a fault mid-stream and another one conveying traders was asked to assist in ferrying the pupils to the other side of the river.
He said it was in the process of transferring the pupils to the other boat that the problem started.
He said as the transfer was nearing completion, the second boat began to capsize and that efforts made to rescue the passengers failed.
He said the river in which the mishap took place was about 100 metres wide and separated the Nigerian community of Bukuro from the Beninios village of Yariwondon.
Alhaji Mas'ud Adebimpe, the Chief Press Secretary to the Kwara Governor, who was also at the briefing, promised to confirm if any of the 15 missing persons was an indigene of the state.
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