3 die in canoe capsize

Citizens of Karblaken town in Harper District, Maryland County, southeast Liberia are in tears after a daughter of the town lost her three boys when a canoe in which they were travelling capsized in the Atlantic Ocean.

Madam Mary Allison, a Marylander and daughter of Karblaken is married to an Ivorian only identified as Weiyea for over 10 years. She suffers the tragedy while enroute from neighboring Ivory Coast to Liberia riding in a canoe with the kids to visit her father and other relatives here. Karblaken town, about 25kilometers from Harper City, situates along the intersection of the Cavalla River and the Atlantic Ocean.

The General Town Chief Dioh Scott, narrates that the incident occurred during evening hours of Sunday, September 3, 2017 when seven persons boarded the canoe from neighboring Ivory Coast to Liberia like they do on a daily basis, but the canoe reportedly capsized into the Atlantic Ocean as a result of high current from the ocean.

Chief Scott further explains to our Maryland County correspondent in Karblaken that due to the water current, the man conducting the canoe was unable to control it. He laments that Madam Mary Allison, who survived and found herself helplessly lying along the beach on the Liberian side of the ocean, could not rescue her three kids, ages five, four and three months, respectively.

Speaking to the New Dawn subsequently after the incident, Madam Allison narrates that the kids held her lapper, but the ocean depth and current could not allow her to lift them on shore. “I was looking at my three children fighting for life before their death”, she explains with tears running down her cheeks.

However, following a search mission by over 25 men from the town, two of the boys were discovered and examination conducted in the presence of the Liberia National Police shows that they died as a result of drowning, while the other is yet to be found.

The bodies of the deceased have been turned over to Ivorian local authorities in Bailor, while search is going on for the other. Meanwhile, citizens of Karblaken on the Liberian side are calling on prominent Marylanders and Liberians as well as the Government of Liberia to provide a machine that would enable them to propel their canoe because they travel to Bailor town in Ivory Coast daily to buy food and other basic commodities.

Madam Allison notes that prior to arriving where she and her children boarded the canoe that capsized, she had received information that the first canoe she and the kids road in from their village on the Ivorian side split in halve, signaling that something was actually set to happen on that day.

By George K. Momo/ Maryland-Editing by Jonathan Browne