By Samuel Oyadongha, Yenagoa

Residents of the coastal town of Ezetu I in Southern Ijaw Local Government of Bayelsa State have called on the state government and other relevant agencies to come to their aid following last week boat mishap which claimed about twenty lives along the community waterway.

Recall that the ill-fated boat conveying traders mostly women, majority of whom are of Igbo extraction and their goods was said to have left Ezetu I community on the Atlantic fringe and sailing to Swali in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital when it exploded and sank.

The decomposing corpses of nineteen of the occupants of the doomed boat were recovered 48 hours after an intensive search by local divers and men of the marine department of the Nigerian Police Force.

The recovered bodies were conveyed to Yenagoa in body bags last Friday and deposited at the morgue of the Federal Medical Centre.

Lamenting the tragic incident, the community development committee, CDC, chairman of Ezetu I, Richard Emmanuel, who spoke with newsmen in Yenagoa said the community folks who are predominantly fishermen had temporarily ceased operations because of the polluted river.

His words, “On the 9th of August,the local boat called Denge, which usually supplied us with foodstuffs, while on its way back from our community, had an explosion and in the process, several persons lost their lives.

“The bodies were recovered through the efforts of the community. Based on what happened the area has been polluted and now nobody can go fishing which is our traditional occupation.

“It is a really sad situation where several lives perished and now we can not find a genuine way of getting foodstuffs to our village.

“These were the only people who had volunteered individually and came together to ensure that they do some kind of trade by barter to supply foodstuffs and now that this channel has been paused at the moment, there is no other boat available supplying foodstuffs within the area.

“What we are talking about now covers both our community and every other satellite community within this region.

“We are therefore calling on the government to come to our aid by providing relief materials to sustain the community. Our people are starving due to the adverse effect of what happened.”