Wayne Lumbasi
Five Sudanese footballers died on Sunday when their boat sank in the Nile, north of the capital Khartoum.
It said the players, members of the third division team Navigation, were on their way to play a match when their boat sank. The agency did not state how the vessel sank but said the entire team was on board.
The players were travelling from the city of Shendi in the River Nile state in northern Sudan to the city of Al Matama to play against El-Jiref, in the third division league
Boat accidents are not new on the Nile. Passenger ferries are often old and not safe. Incidents are particularly frequent when the river tends to flood in the summer once water levels rise.
Drownings are not uncommon in the Nile River in Sudan, with people using boats often deemed unsafe.
More than 20 school children died in 2018 and at least 100 people died in 2019 after they drowned in the river, which reached unprecedented levels of high currents in 2020. The floods saw large parts of Sudan submerged in water and displaced over a million people.
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