Eight die, 46 missing as boat capsizes off Guinea: police

Fishing pirogues are pictured off the coast of Senegal in 2003. By Marcel Mochet (AFP/File)

CONAKRY (AFP) - Eight people died and 46 were missing after a boat capsized off the coast of Guinea on Friday, a paramilitary police source said.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bodies of "seven women and a little boy younger than 10-years old" had been recovered from the water after the pirogue -- a flat-bottomed boat -- capsized.

The information was confirmed by police outside a Conakry hospital where the bodies had been sent.

The gendarme said a total of 58 people were on board the boat which capsized a few minutes after setting off for Kassa Island several kilometres from the capital Conakry.

"The pilot of the boat was doing his first voyage," the source explained.

Another paramilitary police officer speaking shortly after the accident took place said many women and babies had been aboard the pirogue, a canoe-like boat used by fishermen and for transport.

The pirogue had the capacity to seat around 20 people and capsized "under the weight of the passengers and their goods," he said, also asking not to be named.

Four people had been pulled from the water alive.

A similar accident in the beginning of the year left about 20 people dead when a boat capsized on the way from Conakry to Freetown in neighbouring Sierra Leone.