Five people were killed after a boat capsized in a river in Benue State in north-central Nigeria on Monday, January 19.
The unnamed wooden-hulled vessel was transiting the Buruku River in Benue's Buruku Local Government Area with an unknown number of passengers and two vehicles carrying food products when it suddenly overturned on Monday evening (local time).
Local media said most of the boat's passengers were rescued while five people were found dead and another person has been reported as missing.
A number of witnesses said that the vessel sank due to overloading, as it was carrying more than 45 passengers plus the two vehicles.
Local officials have refused to give reporters a total casualty count as the incident is still under police investigation.
Rescuers are continuing their search for the last missing passenger. Officials said that this individual and the five deceased victims were all young students who were returning to school.
Nigeria has repeatedly come under scrutiny for its poor passenger vessel safety record.
Earlier this year, ferry safety advocate and Baird Maritime Co-Founder Dr Neil Baird wrote that seven passenger vessel incidents in Nigeria in 2025 resulted in 292 deaths, while in 2024, 423 fatalities were recorded from 13 incidents in the country's waters. These figures make Nigeria the country with the second-worst passenger vessel safety record after the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"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," Dr Baird wrote in 2025.
