2023-08-06 16:33:21
Twenty-four people were killed Sunday, August 6, in the accident of a minibus which fell into a ravine on a mountain road in central Morocco, local authorities announced. The minibus, which was carrying passengers going to the weekly market in the town of Demnate in the province of Azilal in the early morning, overturned in a bend, the same source said.
After falling into a deep ravine on a dangerous road, the vehicle was crushed, according to images broadcast by the 2M television channel.
“All the passengers died, one of them was taken to hospital in serious condition but unfortunately succumbed to his injuries”said Youssef Makhloufi, director of Demnate hospital, interviewed by 2M.
An investigation has been opened to determine the exact circumstances of this tragedy.
Frequent accidents
The roads in Morocco, and more generally in the Maghreb countries, are reputed to be dangerous, and accidents are frequent.
In March, five people were killed and 27 others injured in an accident near the capital, Rabat. In November 2022, another accident left eleven dead and forty-three injured near the town of Taza, in the northeast of the country. In August 2022, a bus accident left twenty-three dead and thirty-six injured, east of Casablanca.
Coaches and minibuses are a mode of transport widely used by Moroccans, especially the most modest who cannot afford a car, to travel in the rural and isolated areas of this country of 37 million inhabitants.
In 2022, road accidents killed more than 3,200 people in Morocco, a number down 7% from the previous year, according to statistics from the National Road Safety Agency (Narsa), created in January 2020.
The Moroccan authorities have implemented a series of measures to try to combat the scourge of road insecurity, and to halve the mortality rate by 2026, following the worst bus accident in the history of the country in 2012, which left forty-two dead.
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