Run-down roads, reckless driving and poor vehicle maintenance are all being blamed for a spike in deadly traffic accidents in Tunisia that has safety experts worried.
At least 16 people were killed and 85 injured on Wednesday when a lorry’s brakes failed and it crashed into a bus in the center of the country.
The dawn accident near Kasserine also left around 15 cars ablaze in one of the country’s worst crashes in recent years.
Road traffic deaths rose by nine percent in the first five months of this year compared with 2015, sparking calls for tougher measures to crack down on widespread traffic offenses.
By the end of May the death toll from road accidents in the nation of some 11 million inhabitants stood at a grim 528 people.
“We’re experiencing road terrorism. The accident rate is simply terrifying,” says Imed Touil, head of the Tunisian Road Safety Association.
In a 2015 report from the World Health Organization, Tunisia had the second worst traffic death rate per capita in North Africa behind war-torn Libya.
Tunisia logged 24.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data from previous years, less than Libya’s 73.4 but far more than 2.9 in the United Kingdom.
Activists say the climate of impunity since Tunisia’s 2011 uprising is taking its heaviest toll on the young.
Source: AFP
