Scores die in boat disaster

Some 70 people died when a ship sank in rough seas off the coast of Sierra Leone, news organisations reported on Friday. Survivors told journalists that the boat was overloaded and capsized after being hit by a violent storm. “I believe our boat would have resisted the storm but because it was overloaded, it capsized and sank,” Reuters reported crew member Alimamy Sumba as saying. The incident happened last Wednesday, after the boat left the southern shore of the Freetown peninsula carrying petrol, kerosene and rice. According to news reports, the disaster is the latest in a series of shipping accidents in the area this year. “Unless drastic measures are taken by the government against local boat crews, these sea disasters will not come to a halt,” the general manager of the Sierra Leone Port Authority told reporters. The government imposed a ban on internal shipping following an attack on Freetown by rebels in January. The ban has not yet been lifted but is widely ignored by traders, Reuters said.