22 dead, 69 missing in shipwreck off Guinea-Bissau

Bissau: At least 22 people died and 69 were missing after their overloaded boat sank on Friday off the capital of Guinea-Bissau, rescue workers said.

A total of 97 people were aboard the boat en route from the Atlantic Ocean island of Boloma to Bissau, they said.

"Twenty-two bodies were recovered and six survivors were rescued," a rescue worker said, adding that a search was under way for the remaining missing.

The accident was blamed on the overloading combined with high ocean swells off the west African country.

Boloma is among about 100 tiny islands, most of them unihabited, in an archipelago off the capital of the former Portuguese colony.

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