The death toll from a collision between a bus carrying Afghan migrants returning from Iran and two other vehicles in western Afghanistan has risen to 76, a provincial official said on Wednesday.
“Seventy-six citizens of the country… lost their lives in the incident, and three others were seriously injured,” Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, Herat provincial government spokesman, said in a statement.
Police in Guzara district outside Herat city, where the accident took place on Tuesday night, said the bus collided with a motorcycle and a truck carrying fuel, sparking a fire.
The bus was carrying Afghans recently returned from Iran to the capital Kabul, Saeedi told AFP on Tuesday.
At least 1.5 million people have returned to Afghanistan since the start of this year from Iran and Pakistan, both of which have sought to force migrants out after decades of hosting them, according to the UN migration agency.
The state-run Bakhtar News Agency said Tuesday’s accident was one of the deadliest in the country in recent years.
Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of conflict, dangerous driving on highways and a lack of regulation.
In December last year, two bus accidents involving a fuel tanker and a truck on a highway through central Afghanistan killed at least 52.
AFP
