Update: Death toll of sunk Tigris ferry rises to 80
At least 79 people
died when an overloaded ferry carrying families on an outing sank in the Tigris
river in Mosul in northern Iraq, medical sources said on Thursday.
Most of the casualties
on the ferry were women and children who could not swim, said the head of
Mosul's Civil Defense Authority Husam Khalil.
He said the ferry had
been loaded to several times its capacity. "It can normally carry 50
people. There were 250 on board before the incident," he said.
Five ferry workers
were arrested after late on Thursday, security sources said. Rescue workers
were still looking for missing passengers.
The boat was ferrying
people to a man-made island used as a recreational area by families, according
to one witness.
"I was standing
near the river back when suddenly the ferry started to tilt left and right, and
passengers began screaming before it capsized," said Mohamed Masoud, a
local civil servant.
"I saw women and
children waving with their hands begging for help but no one was there to
rescue them. I don't know how to swim. I couldn't help. I feel guilty. I
watched people drown."
Iraqi Prime Minister
Adil Abd al-Mahdi ordered an inquiry into the accident and said on Twitter that
those responsible would be held accountable.
Mobile phone footage
showed the ferry sinking into the muddy water and people shouting for help.
Among the dead were some 19 children and at least 52 women, medical sources
said.
Reconstruction of
Mosul, much of which was destroyed in a military campaign to recapture the city
from Islamic State militants in 2017, has barely begun and is haphazard.
Residents say they
feel abandoned by the central government, but have returned and started to
rebuild their own homes. The city's infrastructure remains largely damaged.
The rescue team was
retrieving survivors and had rescued 12 people so far, Khalil said.
Police and medical
sources said earlier at least 40 people had drowned. A source in a nearby
hospital and another in a morgue said the toll had risen to 79.
The accident took
place to the north of the city, near a recreational area popular with families.