Seven people are missing after a motorised canoe sank on a waterway in central Cameroon, the region's top administrator told AFP.

"A canoe with 12 people on board sank on Tuesday. There are five survivors but we have no news of seven people," said Peter Ntieh Nde, prefect of the Nyong and Kele region.

The boat sank on the Nyong River near the village of Malombo, about 650 kilometres (400 miles) northeast of the capital Yaounde, he said late Wednesday.

Local people have organised a search, he said.

At least 17 people died in August 2019 when a passenger boat capsized on a sandbar in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Cameroon.