11 Kenyan university students perish in a car accident

Police claimed that eleven students from a prestigious university in Kenya were killed and 42 others were critically injured when a bus transporting them skidded in heavy weather and crashed with a truck on a busy highway.

About 360 kilometers (220 miles) from Nairobi, the capital, the tragedy happened at 5:50 p.m. (1450 GMT) on Monday in Maungu while the Kenyatta University students were on their way to the coastal resort of Mombasa.

According to authorities, forty-two persons were critically hurt, while ten members of the Kenyan university perished immediately upon impact and one more died later in the hospital.

“The university bus slipped to the right side of the road as the driver was passing a group of cars in the heavy downpour.” the police report said.

The statement said, “This prompted the truck driver to avoid head-on collision, hence hitting the left side of the university bus.”

There were fifty-eight persons on the academic trip in the bus.

The Kenyan Red Cross said on X, formerly Twitter, that the injured had been sent to a hospital in the neighboring town of Voi.

Kenyatta University established a support station at the main campus to offer “assistance during this challenging time” and expressed its “deep sadness” over the accident on Tuesday.

It stated, “Some of the injured students are being evaluated for potential evacuation to Nairobi.”

Road conditions are frequently poor and traffic laws are either broken or disregarded in the east African country, which leads to a high rate of road accidents.

The number of road accidents in Kenya in 2023 was 7,8 percent lower than the previous year, with 4,324 fatalities and 18,561 injuries, according to data released by the National Transport and Safety Authority.

But the beginning of 2024 was deadly, with 536 deaths from January 1 to February 11, which is 5% more than during the same time in the previous year.

The most well-known event resulted in the death of 24-year-old world marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum on February 11.

On Tuesday, their van collided with a tractor in western Kenya, resulting in five fatalities and eighteen injuries.

A high school student and a teacher perished on Saturday after their bus, carrying sixty-three people, lost control and tumbled down a hill many times.