No fewer than 11 people, including a pregnant woman and six children, were feared dead when a boat conveying them from a burial ceremony capsized on the River Benue in the Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State.
According to a local source who simply identified himself as Daniel, the incident occurred on Saturday night.
Daniel told journalists in a telephone interview on Sunday that the victims were returning to the Daududawadawa community, an island settlement behind the Nigerian Army School of Military Engineering Barracks located in the North Bank area of the state capital.
The local source said that the ill-fated boat, which had about 40 people on board, capsized in the middle of the river between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. during a heavy downpour accompanied by a windstorm.
The commander of a local vigilante group, Operation Shara (Sweep), in North Bank, Nura Umar, who confirmed the incident, said that the victims were returning from the burial of a woman from their community at Wadata.
