[01:09.07]The passengers were mostly traders returning home after a busy market day in another village before disaster struck.

[01:15.73]A spokesman for the state emergency management agency says the boat had over 150 people on board,

[01:22.19]more than double the number of the passengers that could handle not counting the heavy goods they had with them.

[01:27.43]Officials say the recovered corpses will be given a mass burial near the riverbank.

[01:31.07]Water transport is not well regulated on the River Niger and boats often travel overloaded.

[01:36.75]Officials in Tunisia say the Islamist-led government has agreed to step down in a few weeks time,

[01:42.48]and make way for a caretaker administration after negotiations with secular opposition are concluded.

[01:48.93]Talks in forming a transitional government could start on Monday.

[01:52.58]Peter Hiett reports.

[01:54.06]The moderate Islamist party Ennahda which led the Tunisian government was careful to share power in the hope avoiding the worst mistake that President Morsi and his colleagues in Egypt.

[02:03.77]But it’s still found itself accused of being too soft in Islamist extremists especially of the separate assassinations of two leftist opponents.

[02:11.86]It starts outcry which led to talks with secular opposition brokered by trade unions on how to emerge from Tunisia's political paralysis.