Disheartening as a boat accident that occurred along the Andoni-Bonny coastal waters in Rivers State on Tuesday, is feared to have claimed the lives of 20 persons, including children.<\/p>\n
Worthy of note, the details of the accident are still sketchy as of the time of reporting this incident, the accident involved two passenger boats plying the routes.<\/p>\n
Report has it that most of the victims were said to be from Ngo town, Ataba, and Isiama communities in the Andoni Local government area of the state.<\/p>\n
The chairman of a group, Obolo Youths Coalition, Bonny LG chapter, Gogo Obolo, Confirming the incident, said in a telephone chat that the passengers were returning from Ngo town in Andoni to Bonny Island when the accident occurred.<\/p>\n
Expressing worry that none of the affected victims have been recovered, he urged the Chairman of the local government, Chief Erastus Awortu, and his counterpart in Bonny LG to expedite action to recover the bodies of the victims and extend a hand of support to their families.<\/p>\n
Obolo stated, \u201cThe Andoni people residing in Bonny Local Government Area received shocking news of our brothers and sisters involved in a boat accident while returning from the Christmas celebrations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we pray that the rescue effort yields more success to reduce the pain of the accident, we employ the Andoni local government chairman, Chief Erastus Awortu, and his counterpart in Bonny LG, Anengi Barasua, to visit the family of the victims in this trying period.\u201d
\nThe Chairman of Andoni LGA, Awortu, who also confirmed the boat accident, said he immediately dispatched a rescue team upon receiving a distress call, which led to the rescue of some persons.<\/p>\n
In a report obtained on Wednesday, Awortu,\u00a0 commiserated with the families of those who lost their lives in the accident and promised to take over the medical bills of those rescued.<\/p>\n
He, however, warned people and residents of Andoni to stop embarking on night journeys on the waterways and asked boat operators to always comply strictly with safety rules.
\nThe statement read, \u201cWe received with rude shock and deep pain a disturbing report that over 20 persons from Andoni are feared dead in a boat accident involving two Andoni\/Bonny-bound boats which occurred within the Andoni waterways on Tuesday, January 9, 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon receiving the sad news, we immediately dispatched our team to join the first responders on rescue mission at the scene of the incident in a bid to salvage the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are closely monitoring the situation to offer further support, especially to give the survivors necessary medical attention and recover the remains of the dead from the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hearts go out to the families and communities of victims of this unfortunate disaster especially Ngo Town, Ataba, Isiama and other Communities whose loved ones were involved in the boat mishap.
\n\u201cWe share in their pain and trauma, our prayers and thoughts are with them in this moment of grief. We will do whatever we can as a Local Government to reduce the burden of grief of the bereaved families and communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we bemoan the boat mishap which came at a time when our people were still basking in the mood of a successful festive season in Andoni, we call on operators of water transportation in Andoni to ensure strict compliance of all passengers to safety rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also warn the operators to desist from embarking on night journeys on sea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Efforts to reach the spokesperson for the state police command, Grace Iringe-Koko, proved abortive, as she did not answer several calls put across to her.<\/p>\n
She is also yet to reply to a text message sent to her as of the time of filing this report on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Disheartening as a boat accident that occurred along the Andoni-Bonny coastal waters in Rivers State on Tuesday, is feared to have claimed the lives of 20 persons, including children. Worthy of note, the details of the accident are still sketchy as of the time of reporting this incident, the accident involved two passenger boats plying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":13830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[530],"class_list":["post-13822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-rivers-state"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13831,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822\/revisions\/13831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}