At least 12 people have drowned after their boat sank in northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region. The wooden vessel was transporting passengers across the Tekeze River to a funeral when it was struck by a flash flood and capsized on Saturday. The Tekeze River runs along Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea.
The boat was carrying 26 passengers at the time of the accident. Survivors were taken to a hospital for treatment, including a “severely wounded” child, according to reports from the Amhara Media Corporation (AMC). As of Sunday, it was unclear if all the bodies of the deceased had been recovered from the water.
A local official told AMC that work on an out-of-use bridge spanning the Tekeze River, which was supposed to be completed last month, had been delayed.
Media access to northern Ethiopia remains heavily restricted by the authorities, amid ongoing clashes between the military and an ethnic Amhara militia known as the Fano.
