It was survival for the fittest in killer boat - survivors

Residents anxiously wait on the shore of Lake Albert at Kitebere landing site on March 23 as Ugandan police struggled to retrieve bodies from the lake. AFP photo 

Sunday, March 30 2014 at  02:00 Web link: http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePower/It-was-survival-for-the-fittest-in-killer-boat---survivors/-/689844/2262464/-/13vhvljz/-/index.html

By Felix Basiime

& Ruth Katusabe

In Summary

Death in water. Some survivors say the boat meant to carry 50 people carried 150. Others say a child who saw a big snake alarmed, causing a stampede on board and eventual capsizing of the boat, while other accounts indicate that the boat failed to start several metres after takeoff. Sunday Monitor’s Felix Basiime & Ruth Katusabe digs deep into the circumstances surrounding the accident.

Ms Leya Nkabukemba, 25, is admitted to Bubukwanga Health CentreI II in Bundibugyo District.
“I am feeling a lot of pain all over my body. All my limbs are paining in the joints because of long hours of swimming which I was not used to,” she says.

Nkabukemba is one of the 45 survivors who narrowly escaped death when a boat they were travelling in on Lake Albert capsized last week, killing 109 people.

The more than 150 passengers were travelling from Senjojo landing site in Hoima District to Ntoroko District. They were allegedly escaping back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Nkabukemba and four others are receiving treatment at the health centre while 11 others are being counselled to overcome the trauma.

It is eight months since Nkabukemba fled her village, Budimu, Mulobia in Njiapanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with hundreds of other Congolese refugees and came to Uganda’s hilly Bundibugyo District.

They were fleeing fighting between suspected Allied Democratic Force (ADF) rebels and Congolese government soldiers.

Ms Nkabukemba and about 65,000 other refugees were first settled at Busunga in Bundibugyo District and then at Bubukwanga transit camp in Bundibugyo. Later, the Office of the Prime Minister settled them at Kyangwali refugee settlement camp in Hoima but most of them protested the move as they wanted to go back home.

Since then, Nkabukemba and other refugees have tried to escape from Kyangwali back to DRC until March 22 when a boat they were traveling in capsized near Kitebere landing site in Kibaale District. Police are still searching for more bodies.

Survival for the fittest
On the lake, it was survival for the fittest as everyone on the boat scampered for his or her dear life as the boat started to sink.

“It was a Thursday morning (March 20), when 10 of my relatives and I escaped from Kyangwali refugee camp (Hoima),” Nkabukemba narrates.

She adds: “We went to Malembo village (also in the refugee camp), spent a night at my mother in-law’s and left on Friday night to Senjojo landing site, ready to go back to Congo.”

According to the 25-year-old, it is almost free entry and exit at Kyangwali refugee camp that this situation made it easy for them to escape.

“At Senjojo landing site, we found there many other refugees and we spent a night there. At around 8am on Saturday, we lined up ready to board the boat. Police was there to receive our Refugee ration cards and they charged us Shs4,000 per person because it is illegal for refugees to escape and access boat and road services”.

She says each passenger was charged Shs15,000 for the luggage which they paid before they boarded and were to be charged Shs7,000 for transport per head which they were supposed to pay at the destination.

“After handing over our refugee cards to police, the boat crew started registering us on a paper and loaded our luggage first, the number on the list clocked 264 as the boat crew announced the number before we sat on top of our luggage,” Nkabukemba says.

Capacity of boat
However, the Ntoroko District Police Commander, Mr Bosco Bakashaba, said the boat had a capacity of 50 people.

Nkabukemba adds: “After boarding the boat, we spent an hour complaining that the boat was too overloaded but nobody could listen in the presence of police. The boat engine also took almost 30 minutes to start.”

“The boat moved on the water for more than 200 metres from the landing site but the engine had failed to start. We complained but the steward kept calming us down that he would sail us through to our destination. We remained panicky,” Nkabukemba says.

“When we had moved a longer distance on water, a young kid raised an alarm; he had seen a huge snake ahead of the boat which some of us saw.”

“Her mother gagged the kid to stop scaring others on the boat and in a few minutes, water started entering into the boat”.

It is believed at this point that the scampering of the passengers destabilised the already overloaded boat, forcing it to sink.

“We started collecting water from the boat using our basins and cups on the boat and pouring it in the lake but in a few minutes, the boat capsized and it sank and somersaulted five times, there were no life jackets and most of the people fell in water while others got hold of the boat firmly and that’s how some of us survived,” Nkabukemba says.

At this point, Nkabukemba says everyone was yelling for help and this was at around 10am.
She adds: “I am six months pregnant and I had three children on the same boat so I could not hold the boat any longer with my two children at the back so I swam with them to a nearby floating mattress, however, this could not help us as it overturned and I lost my children, one was 5 and another 7 years.”

Nkabukemba painfully narrates: “I kept holding the floating mattress for about an hour and our boat kept on being carried by the water waves. Later, another boat came driven by “fish guards” looking for the steward; they then called other boats from Kitebere and started to rescue us”.

“One of the rescue boats came for me, the rescuers found me swimming with my mattress until they pulled me to their boat.”

Zadoki Kosita, 13, also from Budimu in DRC, only survived by holding onto the boat firmly until the rescue team came later.

“Other adults who had held my limbs in an attempt to also get hold of the boat, later drowned and died as they failed to hold on,” Kosita says.

Ms Rose Nsone, 25, from Kahondo in Njiapanda in the DRC, says she was seated in the middle of the boat and she has a similar story as Nkabukemba.

“I don’t know how to swim and I kept holding the boat, but as it sank in the waters, I kept hold of my breath to survive until the rescue team arrived.”
Why escape from Kyangwali?

According to Nsone, the main reason for the attempted escape is hunger.

“The reason why we escaped the camp at Kyangwali is that we used to sleep hungry and at times spend the whole day without getting a meal,” Nsoni laments, adding: “We used to get three mugfuls of raw maize and bean seeds which we would mix and cook together (locally known as enjwangane)”

“Most of us have big families and cannot survive on the three mugfuls and this supply occurs once a month so we cater for ourselves. Those who have money in the camp buy rice from the nearby trading centres,” she narrates.

“We resolved that instead of suffering in Kyangwali, which is not our home country, we better go back to Congo and die from there” she says.

She adds that the health services at Kyangwali are very poor in that some refugees have died in the camp especially women and children. According to her, the camp has little drugs.

“The drugs are scarce in the camp and only available in private clinics around the camp but we can’t afford them as they are expensive for us,” Nsone says, adding: “The midwives mistreat pregnant women, especially when in labour pains and some of the refugee women have died at this stage”

The government has since denied claims that the refugees were fleeing as a result of hunger.
Other refugees claim that the weather in Hoima is warmer than in DR Congo and not favourable to them.

Why prefer water transport


According to Nkabukemba, by road it costs Shs40, 000 from Hoima to Fort Portal and connecting to Busunga border post in Bundibugyo at the Uganda-DRC border is another Shs17,000.

With this, the escaping refugees found road transport very expensive and preferred water transport. From Hoima to Ntoroko by water, they would spend Shs7,000 and from Ntoroko they would connect to Bundibugyo using lorries at Shs10,000 which they found cheaper.

But their dream of reaching their destination was painfully washed away in the lake.

ACCIDENTS ON LAKE ALBERT


About Lake Albert


Lake Albert, also known as Albert Nyanza and formerly Lake Mobutu Sese Seko, is one of the African great lakes. It is Africa’s seventh-largest lake, and the world’s twenty seventh largest lake by volume.

Lake Albert is located in the centre of the continent, on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Lake Albert is the northernmost of the chain of lakes in the oil rich Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. It is about 160 km long and 30 km wide, with a maximum depth of 51 m, and a surface elevation of 619 m (2,030 ft) above sea level.

The few settlements along the shores include Butiaba and Pakwach.

Accidents on the lake
In December 2004, 22 people died when a boat they were travelling in capsized at Korokoto between Mahangi and Panyimur on Lake Albert.

In February 2004, 45 people died when their boat capsized on their way from Bugoigo in Buliisa District to Panyimur in Nebbi District.

In July 2003, 20 people drowned at Ruunga landing site when a canoe capsized. They were travelling from Panyimur to Bugoma in Hoima.

In September 2000, 41 people died when their boat sunk near Kayonga with over 100 bags of fish. The boat was travelling from Kijangi landing site in Hoima District to Panyimur market in Nebbi District.

In May 1998, 10 people drowned near Kanara landing site in Ntoroko District while sailing towards Kibaale district.

In 1997, 65 people died when the boat capsized on the way to Dei market in Nebbi from Butiaba in Masindi.

In August, 2010, about 70 people drowned in Lake Albert at night in a boat accident when a passenger boat sank. Over 50 people survived the accident.

Eyewitnesses said the boat had about 90 business persons and children, together with sacks and boxes of merchandise on board.

In February, 2010, four UPDF soldiers drowned in the water body.

The then officer in charge Kitebere Landing Site Police post, Mr Joseph Oyolo said the soldiers were returning from Ntoroko in Bundibugyo District where they had gone to collect their monthly salaries.
He attributed the accident to over-loading of the boat with bunches of matooke and maize flour.
In August 2010, 23 bodies were recovered from Lake Albert following a Saturday night boat accident at Kakoma in Runga village in Hoima District.

Police said although the boat had a capacity of 40 passengers, over 90 people were on board.
December 2012, 23 drown in the Lake when the boat was hit by a storm but most of them survived. They swam towards Nsonga landing site.

The Nsonga Beach Management Unit chairman, Mr Francis Mugema Kisembo, said the storm destroyed more than 30 houses at his landing site.