By Micah Jonah
February 12, 2026
At least 21 people, including women and children, have drowned after a passenger ferry capsized on the River Nile in Sudan’s River Nile State, civil defence officials confirmed on Thursday.
Sudanese authorities said six or seven passengers were rescued, while efforts continue to locate about a dozen others still missing.
The wooden ferry, carrying 30 to 35 passengers, sank on Wednesday evening while travelling between the villages of Tayba al-Khawad and Deim al-Qarai. Among the passengers were elderly people and children.
Police Major General, Qurashi Hussein, Sudan’s assistant director general of civil defence, said teams had been dispatched from Khartoum, the capital, to assist in search and rescue operations. All civil defence units in River Nile State were mobilized to find the missing.
“Our teams are still searching for bodies of those who drowned in the Nile,” Hussein said.
The Sudan Doctors Network, a group of Sudanese medical professionals, lamented the tragedy, pointing to the fragile state of river transport in Sudan and the lack of basic safety measures. The network also criticised the slow response of local authorities and civil defence teams in the critical hours after the accident.
The group demanded urgent government action to improve river safety and prevent such tragedies in the future.
Wednesday’s disaster is not the first in the region. In 2018, at least 23 people, mostly children, drowned when another boat sank while transporting schoolchildren on the Nile.
