KAMPALA – At least six people were killed and an unspecified number injured in a Saturday morning road accident in the midwestern Ugandan district of Kiryandongo, police said here.
Julius Hakiza, Albertine regional police spokesperson, told Xinhua by telephone that the fatal accident involved two passenger buses and a military truck at Alelo village, Dima parish, along the Kampala – Gulu Highway at around 4:00 a.m. local time.
“The KK bus travelling from the capital, Kampala knocked a military truck from behind for fearing to have a head-on collision with a speeding Nile Star bus from the opposite direction,” said Hakiza.
“Five people including the KK and military truck drivers died on the spot. Another person died on the way to the hospital. A number of victims are injured,” he said.
The police spokesperson attributed the fatal accident to overspeeding and reckless driving by the two bus drivers.
The injured victims were rushed to Kiryandongo hospital for treatment while the bodies of the deceased were taken to Kiryandongo mortuary for postmortem.
Uganda registers about 20,000 accidents each year, with some 2,000 deaths, making it one of the countries with the highest traffic death rates, according to police statistics.
The police attribute the high rates of road accidents to reckless driving, overspeeding, human error, drink driving and overloading.
