Mozambique: Man arrested for trying to sell two grandsons for their organs - report
Photo: TVM
The death toll from a major road accident on Saturday, in the Lualua locality in Mopeia district, in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia has now risen to 28, according to a report on the independent television station STV.
The latest victim was a young child. Surgeons at Quelimane central hospital fought to save the child’s life, but without success.
The other 27 deaths occurred at the crash site, on the main north-south highway, where a minibus travelling southwards, and carrying 25 passengers, smashed head on with an articulated truck in which six people were travelling.
All the passengers in the minibus died but, remarkably, the driver survived with only minor injuries.
Moises Francisco, an eyewitness at the scene, said that most of the passengers, children and adults, perished on the spot due the lack of immediate evacuation to a health facility. Most of the bodies were eventually taken to the Quelimane morgue, for identification and collection by their relatives.
The provincial authorities came under heavy criticism for their slowness to react to the tragedy. The two most senior figures, the Secretary of State for the province, Judite Mussacula, and Provincial Governor Pio Matos, were both on leave. Rescue teams made it to the scene more than two hours after the crash.
The government was absent and the social services and police took hours to reach the scene – even though it is located on the busiest road in the province. The public knew of the disaster, not through any government statement, but from the media, particularly STV, which gave a professional, albeit highly distressing, account of the scene.
In the absence of any assistance from state bodies, ordinary passersby covered the burnt and shattered bodies with cloth. Private vehicles took bodies to the Quelimane morgue. No ambulances were visible to support this painful work.
Anyone who might have expected a public statement of mourning and of condolences from the provincial or national government would have been disappointed. When a meeting of provincial government officials was called, it was just to set up a commission of inquiry into the disaster.
A report in Monday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais” noted that, in less than seven months, 197 people died in traffic accidents on the EN1.
Watch the TVM report.
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