Survivors narrate Lake Victoria boat accident ordeal  

At around 8pm on Wednesday, Mr Badru Jamba, 26, called one of his confidants and informed him of his journey to Kalangala. 

Mr Jamba, a manager of a boat which belongs to Ssenyonga Transporters Ltd, says he was setting off from Kasenyi Landing Site near Entebbe Peninsula enroute to Kisaba Landing Site in Kalangala District. 

On the giant wooden boat, locally known as Kinaala, were 17 passengers travelling with an assortment of cargo on board including 25  jerry cans of petrol, 20 crates of beer, nine sacks of maize flour, and other small luggage.

After sailing about 78 nautical miles, they stopped at Lukuba Landing Site where seven passengers got off fearing the strong winds on the lake, according to Mr Jamba.

“We proceeded with the remaining passengers but 30 minutes into the journey, the two boat engines got entangled in fishing nets and one fell into the water,” Mr Jamba said.

“We got stuck for about an hour trying to remove the nets from the engine propellers but failed. The strong waves then pushed the boat towards the rocky shores at a place known as Kubiyinja,” Mr Jamba narrates.

By this time everyone was panicking since the boat was unstable and couldn’t balance.

Mr Jamba says they started throwing merchandise worth Shs20m into the water to balance the boat and save their lives.

When the wrecked boat rested on the rock, Mr Jamba says he jumped first and the other passengers followed suit.

“The strong winds hit the boat against the rock and it got damaged beyond repair,” he says.

Mr Wilber Mwesigwa, another survivor, said when the boat hit a rock, they jumped off but could not find help until 2:45am when the phone network reconnected. 

“We were nine in total but in a bid to find our way out of the heavy canopies of the small island, we got lost. Four of our fellow survivors went missing and we could only find the network at 2am. At around 3am, it started raining and continued until morning,” Mr Mwesigwa says. 

The two groups were rescued in the morning at around 7am after their search for a path to the shores turned futile. 

Mr Christopher Mbowa, a resident of Lukuba Landing Site, said they spent the whole night searching for the boat with no success.

“At first we thought the boat had capsized due to strong winds. We were only seeing some cargo floating on the water until we saw the wreckage resting on a rock,” he said. 

Marine officers from both Special Forces Command (SFC) and Uganda Police, who asked not to be named in this story, said they grounded all boats, citing the strong winds that the lake is experiencing especially in evening. 

This information was corroborated by Mr Abudnoor Mbabaali, the supervisor of boats at the landing site.

Mr Mbabaali said at the time of the incident, all officers were attending a security meeting which gave the sailors a chance to flout the directive. 

“We didn’t have details of the people on the boat and their cargo. The sailors wanted to make money so they went against the advice to wait for the wind to settle,” He said. 

Mr Anthony Amanya, the office-in-charge of marine operations in Kalangala, said: “Our team rushed to the scene and that is how we managed to save the lives.”

Issue

Statistics from Lake Victoria Basin Commission reveal that 5,000 people die yearly in Lake Victoria as a result of drowning. 

On April 3, six people died on Lake Victoria when a boat in which they were traveling capsized. 

On November 24, 2018, a cruise boat, MV Templar capsized near Mutima Beach on the shores of Lake Victoria and claimed the lives of more than 30 levellers.

On September 3, 2019, five people died in a passenger boat accident between Bukasa Island in Kalangala District and Mukono District. 

On January 24, 2021, seven people drowned after a boat they were sailing in capsized.