At least seven health workers were killed when heavy winds capsized their boat on Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania on Friday, President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s office said.

The group were travelling across the lake to provide medical care in the village of Kagunga on the Tanzania–Burundi border when their boat sank, the president’s office said in a statement.

Fourteen others were rescued and were receiving treatment at a nearby hospital, while rescue teams were still looking for two missing people from the boat.

The area hosts thousands of Burundian refugees, who recently started returning to their home country after many years in Tanzania as the authorities decided to close their camps. Health workers and humanitarian agencies have been delivering services to the refugees.

In a separate incident on Lake Tanganyika, a fisherman was killed and two others injured when their canoe was struck by lightning, the statement added.

Hassan expressed her "heartfelt condolences".

East Africa has experienced major storms in recent days, with at least 80 killed in floods and landslides in southern Ethiopia, and more than 60 killed by flooding in Kenya.