At least 71 people, including 17 children, have been killed in western Afghanistan after a passenger bus carrying refugees, recently deported from neighbouring Iran, caught fire after colliding with a truck and motorcycle, according to provincial government spokesman Ahmadullah Muttaqi and local police, Al Jazeera reports.
Police in Herat province said on Tuesday that the accident was due to the bus’s “excessive speed and negligence”.
The returnees are part of a massive wave of Afghans deported or forced out of Iran in recent months.
The accident took place a day after Iranian Minister of Interior Eskandar Momeni announced that a further 800,000 people would have to leave the country by next March.
The bus was carrying Afghans recently returned from Iran and en route to the capital Kabul, provincial official Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi told the AFP news agency on Tuesday. He added that all the passengers boarded the vehicle in Islam Qala, a border crossing point.
Taliban government chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed to the dpa news agency that the victims had been deported from Iran, but said that further details were not available immediately.
Police in the Guzara district outside Afghanistan’s city of Herat, where the accident occurred, said a motorcycle was also involved.
The majority of those who died were on the bus, but two people travelling in the truck were also killed, as well as another two who were on the motorcycle.
Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of war, dangerous driving on highways and a lack of regulation.
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