EDITORIAL | Ferry death toll soars again: three African "failed states" account for 72 per cent of it
Thanks entirely to a massive increase in ferry fatalities in several African states, the number of known deaths arising from ferry accidents increased by 55 per cent from 2023 to 2024.
While the number of known fatalities is disgraceful enough, it is almost certain that the real number will be significantly higher because it still remains difficult to obtain such information from the "dark continent." The data we do have, however, is drawn from our Baird Maritime Passenger Vessel Accident Database, which remains the most accurate source available. This is because official government figures, particularly from developing countries, and from IMO, are mostly decidedly spurious.
With a grand total of 2,033 fatalities from 55 “accidents” in 2024 compared with the already appalling 1,308 fatalities from 39 accidents in 2023, the total, particularly in Africa, is reaching pandemic proportions. Unfortunately, that has still failed to inspire the woke joke that is the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to seriously address the problem.
IMO remains in its "coward’s castle" in London hiding behind its pathetically obscene shield of being "unable to interfere in the internal affairs of its sovereign member states" and, thus, also being unable to do anything to improve, or even attempt to improve, the safety of those nations' domestic or internal ferry operations.
Such sovereign member nations as Nigeria and the "Democratic" Republic of the Congo are some of the worst "failed states" on the planet. They are ungoverned, ungovernable, and hopelessly corrupt. They have absolutely no hope at all of solving their ferry safety problems themselves. Someone, or some organisation will have to do it for them.
The only logical organisation to assist such nations is the apparently completely disinterested IMO. Why does it not do something, or is it yet another failed United Nations organisation?
Accident locations remain similar but their frequency and severity are worse
The DRC, as usual, was the worst performer with 950 known fatalities from 11 incidents in 2023 and, also as usual, Nigeria was second worst with 423 fatalities from 13 incidents. They, as I wrote a year ago, "stand proud as the most dangerous places on earth for ferry travel."
The main factor that seems to be saving Nigerians from fates as bad as their Congolese brethren is that they tend to travel on smaller ferries. An unfortunate newcomer to the African league table, though, is Mozambique with 90 fatalities from just one known accident.
In stark comparison, the once worst performing nations of the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and China had no to negligible fatal ferry accidents with similarly small death tolls again in 2024. Their governments are to be congratulated on their very successful efforts to make ferry travel much safer. Their combined total of accidents was eight in 2024 with a total of 84 known fatalities arising.
Those countries all once had ferry death tolls that, if anything, were significantly worse than the African failed states. They, however, applied themselves seriously to solving their problems and did so with a will to achieve using widely known safety improvement techniques that mainly depended on sensible, strong regulation, improved training and education, and rigorous enforcement of safety rules.
It's pretty simple, really, but no one, least of all the hapless, hopeless IMO, appears interested in applying such techniques in far too many African nations. That is tragic and completely inexcusable.
Of course, we continue to be unable to obtain useful and reliable information form "hermit kingdom" nations such as Myanmar and North Korea. We are aware of several accidents in the former country and feel certain that North Korea would be unlikely to be immune from them. Meanwhile, virtually no fatalities occurred in developed countries.
The reasons never change much
The reasons behind fatal ferry accidents never seem to change much. Almost all – at least 99 per cent – result from human error of one kind or another. They are:
Poor lookout leading to collisions and allisions
Overloading, leading mostly to capsizes and sinking
Unseaworthy vessels. The vast majority of fatal accidents involve elderly, dilapidated wooden craft.
Poor seamanship
General negligence and, particularly, completely inadequate lifesaving equipment, especially lifejackets
Their solutions are obvious and can be readily achieved as the Asian countries mentioned above have clearly demonstrated.
IMO appears completely disinterested
As in 2023, IMO again showed no obvious interest in the international ferry safety problem. Yet again, it has completely failed to promote its very simple and useful Model Regulations on Domestic Ferry Safety that were developed from the very successful techniques that led to major improvements in China and the Philippines. What a waste!
Perhaps in 2025, IMO’s increasingly woke Secretary-General, who recently announced his refusal to involve himself in any conference or committee that fails to have adequate female representation, would take more notice if he were aware that females are disproportionately over-represented in ferry death tolls. As English academic and author Dr Jo Stanley pointed out to me recently, that is almost certain to be the case.
While I do not have the detailed data to prove it, my strong feeling is that Dr Stanley would be correct. My feeling is that the female component would be about 75 per cent of the total ferry death toll, particularly in the poorer parts of the world. The reasons for that, I believe are obvious.
Perhaps that very obvious and important reality might inspire IMO’s SG, if it were made known to him, to focus on this very significant problem and so burnish his feminist DEI credentials.
An interesting alternative to non-existent IMO or government action is people power. Following the capsize of a grossly and greedily overloaded ferry on the Lukani River in DRC in August, a group of distressed relatives lynched the ferry’s owner. Hopefully, that might have offered a lesson to that man's compatriot owners.
I repeat
As I wrote a year ago:
“While it is disappointing that the ferry fatality toll increased so dramatically in 2023 (and 2024), it is encouraging that some once very poorly performing nations have improved so impressively. South and South-East Asian nations still have room for improvement but they offer an excellent example of what could be done by the 'basket case' administrations in sub-Saharan Africa.
"They undoubtedly need help from the developed world but that help need not be terribly expensive. Lifejackets are cheap, and simple, stable catamaran craft could be constructed locally even from imported kits. If sensibly designed, such small catamarans could solve much of the capsizing problem because they would run out of deck space before they become unstable.
"The biggest problem remains that of human error, fundamentally in the form of gross negligence. That, however, requires substantial reform by governments in the form of regulation, education and enforcement. Short of significant assistance from IMO, that, sadly, is probably too much to expect from the governments concerned. They, it seems, simply don’t care."
I trust and hope that I do not have to repeat those last two paragraphs again next year. I don’t like my chances of that, though.
