Two killed in Tanzania ferry attack

By Cathy Jenkins in Nairobi

Two people have been killed and another 20 are feared drowned after an attack on a ferry on Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania.

The incident occurred last week, but news of it has only just emerged.

Local police say that six gunmen, posing as passengers, seized the ferry and ordered 20 men on board to jump into the lake.

The police say two people - one of them a three-year-old child passenger - were shot dead.

Refugees

The ferry, carrying 50 people, was travelling from the main Lake Tanganyika port of Kigoma to nearby Mgambo.

The gunmen are reported to have stolen property from the passengers, before escaping on two commandeered fishing boats with a number of hostages.

The police have given no indication of the fate of the passengers forced to go with the gunmen.

The incident is reported to have happened last Wednesday, but news of the attack took time to reach the authorities in Dar-es-Salaam.

This was apparently because of a breakdown in communications with Kigoma, which is in the far west of Tanzania.

The area around Kigoma is home to thousands of refugees who have escaped the civil war in Burundi to the north, and the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo across the lake.