Tragic! Family Perishes on Lake Bunyonyi in Canoe Accident
Kabale – Five family members on Wednesday evening perished in an accident on Lake Bunyonyi after their canoe was swept off by a strong wind.
Elly Maate, the Kigezi Regional Police mouthpiece confirmed the incident as says that the accident happened at exactly 6 pm as the group travelled from Ndekura landing site in Rubanda district to Karamba village.
Maate identifies them as Glorious Ayebazibwe, 20, her two sisters; Pretty Kyogabirwe, 9, and Ronah Ninsiima, 8. Ayebazibwe had her two daughters; Shanitah, 6, and another who was seven-months-old.
Maate revealed that the sailor, Dalton Niwampa, 22, Karambo village survived by swimming to yet unknown location.
He says that preliminary investigations of the drowning came as a result of too much wind on the shores and excess loading because the canoe’s capacity is three people but instead it had six people on board.
Ambrose Tumusiime, a resident of Karambo revealed that the tragedy happened when Tumuhimbise was coming from visiting her parents in Rwarubaya Village going back home in Karambo village, with her two daughters, accompanied by her sisters.
Tumusiime said that only Dalton Niwampa, a brother in law to Tumuhimbise, who was paddling the canoe, managed to swim and rescue himself after heavy winds blew the canoe forcing it to turn upside down.
By Wednesday night, the bodies of the deceased were yet to be retrieved from the water.
Earlier this month, three people all residents of Katete Nkora in Nyamiryango parish Butanda Sub-County Kabale district also frowned in L. Bunyonyi as they were coming from Nyamiryango parish sailing back home using a canoe.
Two juveniles died on the same lake last month in a boat accident while three people were also killed in a similar catastrophe early this month.
In June this year, two people from Muko sub-county, Rubanda district drowned in the same lake while travelling in a canoe, yet similar incidents have been witnessed and several lives lost under similar circumstances over the years.
In 2015, President Yoweri Museveni pledged to provide a ferry, since the only available means of transport is by boat to the districts of Kabale and Rubanda. However, the pledge has never been fulfilled.
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