At least seven young schoolgirls, who were on their way to take college entrance exams, tragically drowned when their canoe capsized on the Niger River near the town of Kouroussa in Upper Guinea. A government minister and a relative of one of the victims confirmed the heartbreaking incident.
Guillaume Hawing, the Minister of Pre-university Education and Literacy, expressed his sorrow, stating, “We are deeply saddened by the news of the shipwreck that claimed the lives of seven students. I am in the region to oversee the launch of the first tests of the examination.”
According to Mamadi Kéita, a security guard who lost his half-sister in the incident, the girls were crossing the Niger River to reach the other side for their 7th-year entrance exams, scheduled to begin on Monday. “They boarded an overloaded canoe, which capsized under the weight of passengers and goods,” he tearfully shared over the phone. “All the girls were from the Kourala district in Guinea and were heading to Balato sub-prefecture, located 40 km from Kouroussa prefecture.”
An anonymous local source said that the death toll is currently provisional and could rise further. The search and recovery operations for the bodies continued on Sunday evening.
