30 drown as boat capsizes in Ugandan lake

A locally made boat capsizes on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria killing all 30 people onboard.

A boat capsized on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria and all 30 people onboard drowned, police said on Saturday.

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The vessel capsized late on Friday about 6 kilometres from its destination, Kyatu Island in Lake Victoria, police spokesman Hassan Kasinje said. The passengers boarded the boat on the shore about 200 kilometres east of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, Kasinje said.

The boat was locally made, and had a capacity to carry 60 people and an outboard motor, he said.

He said that fishermen who were about half a kilometre away saw the boat capsizing and rowed to the scene, but when they reached the boat, all the passengers had drowned. Kasinje said police have found 17 bodies and are looking for the rest. He said they had established no one survived the accident. Boat accidents are common in Uganda, which has a number of lakes, and are usually blamed on overloading and the near absence of law enforcement to monitor boat traffic.

Lake Victoria, the world's second-largest body of fresh water, has a number of islands and borders Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.