S. Sudan records 209 road accidents over Easter holiday
April 4, 2013 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s traffic police say they recorded at least 209 road accidents over the Easter holiday period in which 17 people lost their lives.
According to an accidents’ registry seen by Sudan Tribune on Thursday, there were 111 road accidents resulting in four fatalities, while a further two accidents on the Juba-Nimule-Kampala, Uganda road resulted in four deaths.
The improvised registry contains the names of police subdivisions, along with columns showing the date of the accident, names of the victims and remarks on the action taken.
During the five-day holiday, road accidents were reported on a number of major roads leading out to the states and neighbouring counties, as well as in and around Juba.
Police records show there were 12 accidents on the Juba-Yei- Yambio road resulting in three deaths and 13 accidents causing one fatality on the Juba- Bahr el Ghazal road.
Police officer Deng Samuel attributed the rise in accidents to an increase in traffic on the roads, as well as people driving either unlicensed or under the influence.
“We can therefore conclude that there has been an increase in both the number of accidents and lives lost this year compared to last Easter holiday when we recorded 114 accidents with four lives lost,” he said.
“The increase of accidents could be attributed to the fact that there has been an increase in the number of vehicles on the road compared to last year. Also that being [a] holiday unlike any other days, people tend to have time to drive around and also want to visit different places as they are not in [their] offices”, he added.
Samuel stated that 10 cases of murder were also reported over the Easter period, of which five involved the murder of spouses, while the other five involved people that were either related or were known to each other. Police have launched investigations into the cases.
He added that two cases of defilement and one rape case were also reported, while close to 100 assault cases were reported country-wide, of which most of them involved people known to each other.
“We would want to urge people to try and [start] dialogue by all means whenever there is a misunderstanding unlike resorting to physical violence,” Samuel said.
(ST)