DAKAR: Almost 30 people have died in two boat accidents in Senegal and The Gambia, neighbouring west African nations with poor maritime safety records.

Twenty-one people, most of them women, were killed on Monday night when a traditional flat-bottomed boat overturned off Bettenty, a central Senegal island area, with 72 on board, said Commander Oumar Kane, a senior Senegalese firefighting official. All except two present were women, and another 51 people had been rescued, he added.

Bettenty lies in the Saloum delta where such boats, known as pirogues, are often used for travelling between the mangroves and from one islet to another.—AFP