The boat carrying 74 passengers had set off from Palma, a coastal town near the Tanzanian border before it hit rocks and sank near Ibo island. the reports.

At least 32 people were rescued but about 40 people drowned in the accident, the reports said.

The incident took place while hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing the violence in the northern part of Cabo Delgado province, mostly taking boats to get to safety.

More than 400,000 people from Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado have been displaced by violence and are facing serious health risks due to poor living conditions, said the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

“Many of those who have fled attacks by armed groups and Mozambican forces are now living in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions. They lack clean drinking water and are exposed to malaria, while facing the increasing risk of an outbreak of measles, diarrhea, or COVID-19,” the organization noted.

“Approximately 10,000 displaced people arrived by boat to Cabo Delgado’s provincial capital of Pemba last week alone,” said Joaquim Guinart, MSF project coordinator in Cabo Delgado. “They were dehydrated. Women gave birth at sea. There have been cases of severe and potentially fatal diarrhea. There’s a lot of pressure on local medical staff as 20,000 people have arrived throughout the last month, and more will continue to come.”