KHARTOUM, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Eleven men drowned when a boat that was carrying them sank on the river Nile near the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Tuesday, police reported.
Officers said overcrowding on the boat was partly to blame for the accident which took place off Islanj island north of the city.
A police statement said the boat was carrying 40 passengers as it crossed from the island towards the river's eastern bank.
It added that divers were still searching for some of the bodies, but 29 passengers had survived.
"Police said the accident was caused by the severity of the current and the overloading of the boat," the statement said.
"People on the island said they had not seen an incident like it for more than 40 years."
Residents of the more remote banks and islands on the river Nile often rely on traditional wooden boats to ferry them back and forth and safety standards can be low. (Reporting by Andrew Heavens)
Twenty-nine persons survived when the engine stopped on a boat near Islanj Island, about  north of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, on August 4, 2009. Eleven of the forty passengers trying to cross the Nile River drowned when the boat sank.

"Police said the accident was caused by the severity of the current and the overloading of the boat," a police statement said. "People on the island said they had not seen an incident like it for more than 40 years."

Forty farmers, along with their goods, had boarded the boat, overloading it. State ministers from Khartoum, the commissioner of Karrary district, and the police visited Islanj Island following the accident.