Cameroon shipwreck 'kills dozens'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/africa/7777044.stm

Version 0 of 1.

At least 40 people are missing after a boat sank off the coast of Cameroon.

The motorised wooden boat was carrying up to 60 people when it hit a storm in the Gulf of Guinea.

Six men from Burkina Faso and Nigeria have been rescued by Cameroonian fishermen as they clung to a plank of wood from the boat.

It is thought the boat was carrying people from Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos looking for work in oil-rich Gabon.

The journey between Nigeria and Cameroon is perilous but many take the risk to find work in the oil and gas industry in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

"The crew completely lost control, water entered the boat and it turned over," Nigerian survivor Emmanuel Akimba told Cameroonian radio, Reuters news agency reports.

"As it sank, we just hung on to anything that was floating that we could until fishermen came to our rescue before handing us over to the Cameroon navy," he said

Governor of Cameroon's South-West province Fako Jules Marcellin Ndaja said the survivors were receiving medical treatment.

"We do not know whether the other passengers of the boat are dead or alive," he told AFP news agency.