Kenya bus crash kills 11 students, 42 seriously injured

A collision between a bus and truck has killed 11 students from a top Kenyan university and injured dozens, prompting the government to announce investigations into a “spate of road accidents”.

Road accidents are common in Kenya, where road conditions are often poor and traffic regulations violated or ignored.

Although the number of accidents fell last year, the start of 2024 has seen a rise, according to official figures.

In the most high-profile accident, 24-year-old world marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum lost his life in a late-night crash on 11 February.

The Kenyatta University students were en route to the coastal town of Mombasa when the accident happened on a busy highway on Monday at Maungu, 360km from the capital Nairobi.

Ten died on impact and another died later in hospital, police said, adding that 42 people were seriously injured.

“The driver of the university bus was overtaking a fleet of motor vehicles and, because it was raining heavily, the bus skidded to the right side of the road,” the police report said.

This “prompted the driver of the truck to avoid head-on collision, hence hitting the left side of the university bus.”

The bus was carrying 58 people on an academic trip. The injured were taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Voi, the Kenyan Red Cross said.

“This is unacceptable,” Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said in a statement on Tuesday, deploring a “spate of road accidents”.

“Investigations are ongoing to determine the cause of these accidents and appropriate remedial action shall be taken,” Murkomen added.

Kenyatta University said it was “deeply saddened” by the accident and had set up a help desk at the main campus to provide “assistance during this challenging time”.

Seven students have been airlifted to Nairobi for specialised treatment, said Joseph Lelo, the chief medical officer at African Medical and Research Foundation. “We are quite concerned about their conditions. Some suffered spinal injury, they bled a lot, and they need urgent surgery.”

According to figures from the National Transport and Safety Authority, 4 324 people were killed and 18 561 injured in 2023 in road accidents in Kenya, down 7.8% from the previous year.

But numbers jumped at the start of 2024, with 536 people killed from 1 January to 11 February, a 5% rise over a similar period last year. —