By Ghana News 
A beautiful family journey turned into a terrible disaster in the Northern Region this week. Three travelers have been confirmed dead, while three other individuals, including a little baby, have gone missing after a local wooden canoe carrying funeral mourners capsized on the River Oti.
The sad accident happened at a village called Salnaayili inside the Nanumba North Municipality. The local community has been thrown into deep mourning as local rescue teams and traditional divers work around the clock to find the remaining victims in the deep waters.
The tragic journey began on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, when a group of eight people tried to cross the big river after attending a funeral in a nearby community. The travelers included five women, one man, and two little babies who were wrapped tightly to their mothers.
The former Assembly Member for the Salnaayili Electoral Area, Kofi Samuel, told journalists that none of the passengers on board were wearing life jackets when they stepped into the boat. This lack of basic water safety equipment made it incredibly difficult for the travelers to float when the canoe suddenly overturned halfway through the trip.
When the canoe capsized in the middle of the heavy river currents, panic broke out instantly among the passengers. In a amazing act of survival, one of the mothers managed to keep her head above the water and bravely swam all the way to the river bank while holding her baby safely in her arms.
Unfortunately, the other six travelers were not so lucky and got swept away rapidly by the strong river waves. Local fishermen from the Salnaayili community immediately jumped into their own boats to launch an emergency rescue mission, but the heavy July rains have made the river volume very high and dangerous to navigate.
So far, the emergency search teams have managed to retrieve three lifeless bodies from the River Oti. However, three other victims, including the second innocent baby and its mother, are still completely unaccounted for as the hours tick away.
The Ghana Police Service alongside officials from the National Disaster Management Organisation are traveling to the municipality to assist the local search party. This painful incident reminds all of us across the country that traveling on our big rivers without standard life jackets is a massive risk that we must stop taking.
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