Dar es Salaam. Another deadly road accident robbed Tanzania of its nineteen citizens in the early hours of Friday after a Costa minibus collided head-on with a lorry near Changarawe town in the Mafinga district, in Iringa.
It is the third most tragic road accident to take place in Tanzania in less than six months after that of Morogoro which killed a total of 22 people and that of Mtwara which killed fourteen and injured 22.
In 2015, in the same area where the Friday accident took place, a road accident killed more than 40 people.
Iringa Regional Police Commander Allan Bukumbi was quoted as saying on Friday that more than 10 people lost their lives on the spot.
Speaking in the parliament on May 6, 2022, Minister of Home Affairs Hamad Yussuf Masauni said that nearly 1,200 people were killed in 1,594 road accidents that occurred in Tanzania between July 2021 and March 2022, with 2,139 people injured in road accidents during the same period.
Between July 2020 and March 2021, 999 people were killed in 1,228 road accidents that left 1,589 people injured, Masauni said when he was tabling his ministry’s budget proposals for the 2022/2023 financial year.
“Statistics indicate that there has been an increase of 366 road accidents, which is a rise of 29.8 per cent,” said the minister, adding that most of the accidents were caused by reckless driving, defective vehicles, and bad roads.
Mr Masauni said police revoked driving licenses for 87 drivers and suspended over different durations driving licenses for 141 drivers as punishment after they were implicated in causing road accidents.
