India, Jan. 15 -- A ferry boat trying to land at a Niger River town in the Timbuktu region of northern Mali hit rocks and sank in an accident that left dozens of people dead, local officials and relatives of the dead have said. The accident took place Thursday at the town of Dire, officials said Tuesday. Local authorities had not yet released an official death toll, but regional resident and former National Assembly deputy Alkaidi Toure said Tuesday that 38 were killed and 23 survived.

Dire resident Moussa Ag Almoubarek Traore said he lost 21 family member in the accident, and that he helped retrieve and tally the dead with local officials. "I collected the bodies that were scattered across the river, and some were already decomposing. A...