30 dead, 200 missing in Congo after boat sinks

At least 30 people died and hundreds were believed missing after a boat sank over the weekend in a lake in the Democratic Republic of Congo, The Associated Press has reported.

The boat sank after hitting bad weather on Saturday night in Lake Mai-Ndombe, nearly 300 miles northeast of the capital, Kinshasa, The Associated Press reported. Officials said on Sunday that more than 80 people survived but that 200 others were still missing.

Simon Mboo Wemba, the mayor of Inongo, the provincial capital of Mai-Ndombe Province, told The Associated Press on Sunday that many of those aboard were teachers. He said they were traveling to collect their salaries by boat because local roads in that part of the central African country were so poor.

Lake Mai-Ndombe is about 100 miles east of Yumbi, a town where violence between the Bununu and Batende ethnic groups flared a few weeks before the country’s presidential election in December, leaving nearly 900 people dead. Officials later discovered 15 mass graves and 43 single graves in the area.