The Federal Government had confirmed earlier that 76 corpses were recovered from the boat mishap that occurred in Tshohuwar Labata village in Ngaski Local Government Area of Kebbi State.
However, hours after the sad development, a report from the Sokoto office of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), revealed that lifeless bodies counted from the incident have amounted to 81.
Recall that the Area Manager of the Nigerian Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) in Kebbi, Birma Yusuf, had told newsmen on Friday that a search operation is still ongoing as more corpses were expected to be recovered.
Naija News reports that the disturbing event which has now claimed close to a hundred lives happened in the early hours of Wednesday, May 26. The boat was said to be carrying over 150 passengers from Loko Mina in Niger State to a market in Kebbi State.
Mary Noel-Berje, a spokeswoman for the Niger State government confirmed this to newsmen on Friday.
Also giving an update on the incident, Yahaya Sarki, a spokesman for the governor of Kebbi said the wooden boat capsized near Wara, a town on the shores of Kainji Lake, part of the Niger River. He revealed that while 22 persons were rescued alive, more than 100 persons were feared to have drowned in the incident.
Naija News understands that the Warra boat mishap is coming barely a month after 28 persons died in a boat mishap in Niger State.
The casualties were recorded when the boat conveying a hundred persons from Munya Local Government Area of the state to Shiroro hit a stump of a tree 50 metres to its destination.
The article was originally published on Nigeria News