17 injured in South Sudan bus crash

Jul 18, 2014

SEVENTEEN passengers on Thursday sustained serious multiple serious injuries including fractures after a bus overturned after Nimule in South Sudan

By Denis Ojwee

SEVENTEEN passengers on Thursday sustained serious multiple serious injuries including fractures after a bus belonging to Bakulu Bus Company overturned after Nimule in South Sudan.

The police traffic in Nimule confirmed that Bakuulu Bus registration number UAQ 409D from Kampala heading to the South Sudanese Juba overturned five times at Pageri Trading center in Pageri sub-county, Magwi County in Easter Equatorial State in South Sudan after the bus rammed into  a Toyota Ipsum registration EE 5106 B. 

The accident occurred about 28KM after Nimule at about 9:30AM after the Ipsum reportedly crossed the road at a junction as the bus approached at high speed.

There were over 70 passengers reportedly in the bus excluding a bus turn-boy, the conductor and the driver who reportedly fled the scene. 

This brings to at least six reported cases of the road accidents that involve Bakuulu buses along the Kampala-Gulu-Juba highway in the past two years.

A South Sudan Traffic Police Officer based Nimule, William Awan who rushed to both the scene and Nimule Hospital where the victims were taken, said 11 people out of the 17 sustained very serious body cuts and fractures while only six incurred bruises and were discharged after receiving treatment.

Awan revealed that most of the injured passengers were South Sudanese nationals who were returning from Kampala. He attributed the accident to over-speeding and reckless driving by the driver of the Ipsum vehicle.

The traffic officer identified one of the four women passengers with multiple fractures as one Akwir, a South Sudanese and three others who he said could not readily be identified because they had been rushed to the theatre for surgical procedures.

The Aswa Regional Police publicist based in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu, Patrick Jimmy Okema identified the two injured Uganda citizens as Denis Keruber, 26 from Nebbi district and Edward Mubiru from Kampala.

Two Kenyan nationals who sustained injuries were identified as Grace Wanzuri, 45, from Eldoret and Mihimi Orechnichi aged 27.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});