July 19, 2023, 9:51 AM
July 19, 2023, 9:51 AM
At least 34 people died and 12 were injured this Wednesday in the collision of a bus and a utility vehicle, near Tamanrasset, in southern Algeria, Civil Protection announced.
The accident, followed by a fire, occurred around 4:00 a.m. when a bus, traveling from Adrar to the city of Tamanrasset, located some 2,000 km from the capital Algiers, collided with a utility vehicle, the source said.
The extraction and evacuation operations of the victims continued, according to Civil Protection.
According to the official Algerian agency APS, the prefect (wali) of Tamanrasset, Mohamed Boudraâ, went to the public hospital Mesbah-Baghdad in the city to inquire about the state of health of the 12 wounded, who suffered severe burns.
The accident occurred near the town of Outoul, about twenty kilometers west of Tamanrasset, a transit region for the transport of goods between the south and the north of the country.
According to Civil Protection, the bus was carrying passengers between these two cities in the Algerian Sahara, Tamanrasset with 150,000 inhabitants and which has an airport, and Adrar, where some 2,000 people live.
Most of the victims were burned alive.according to local media that broadcast images of the burning bus.
It is the deadliest accident in this region since December 2020, when 20 people died and 11 others were injured when a vehicle overturned near Tamanrasset.
The Tamanrasset region, bordering Niger and Mali, is a transit point for illegal sub-Saharan migrants seeking to reach Europe through Algeria.
