At least 56 people, many of them children, drowned and scores are feared missing after an overcrowded boat capsized off Jolo island in the southern Philippines, officials said last Thursday. About 70 survived, many rescued by fishermen, while one man swam two miles to shore after the ML Annahada capsized on Wednesday night, the coastguard said. Twenty-seven children, aged from three months to nine years, were among the dead. The vessel, locally called a motor launch, was authorized to carry only cargo, and capsized after picking up passengers at sea, said coastguard operations officer Lieutenant Roy Echeverria. After it left Jolo, "several boats carrying people pursued it in the open sea and they boarded the launch, which was illegal and unauthorized," Echeverria said.