Senegal: Another Road Accident Claims 20 in Senegal’s Louga Region

Another deadly accident has been recorded in Senegal on January 16 in the Louga region, in the north of the country. Reports indicate 20 people were killed and 23 others injured. This comes just eight days after a road accident killed more than 40 people in the department of Kaffrine. The accident in Kaffrine prompted the government to devise new road rules in order to prevent similar tragedies in future. Transport syndicates, however, oppose the new legislation, announcing that they intend to begin an indefinite strike at midnight tonight.

A public transport bus – commonly called “schedule” or a “Ndiaga Ndiaye” – collided with a truck coming from Dakar El Hadj Bouya Amar governor of the Louga region told RFI by phone. The accident happened around 5:40 a.m., at the entrance to the town of Ngueune Sarr, on national road 2 which leads to Saint Louis. Unconfirmed reports say the bus driver “was trying to avoid hitting a donkey”, but investigations are still ongoing, the governor said.

The Ministers of Land Transport and that of Interior were on site. The dead bodies were evacuated to Louga while seriously injured passengers evacuated by helicopter to Dakar. In a message on the social network Twitter, President Macky Sall offered his condolences to the families and insisted on “the need to strengthen road safety measures”.

Parts of this story was translated from RFI by allAfrica’s Michael Tantoh