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Kisumu District Hospital/FILE

Kenya

26 perish in Kisumu road accident

Kisumu District Hospital/FILE

KISUMU, Kenya, Feb 4 – At least 26 people are dead following a grisly road accident that occurred on Friday night on the busy Kisumu-Kakamega highway at the Mamboleo black spot.

The accident involving two Nissan matatus and a lorry ferrying sugar from a local factory only left one survivor, who was rushed to New Nyanza General hospital in critical condition but later succumbed to the injuries.

Witnesses say that the two matatus, heading to Kakamega, had stopped at a police road block for a routine inspection by traffic officers’ when a lorry from the opposite direction lost control and rammed into them.

“The lorry driver flashed the head lights several times signaling that all was not well but the vehicles at the road block failed to give way and it rammed into them,” said a witness.

The impact of the collision threw off the two matatus from the road killing all passengers on board.

Two motorcyclists who were on the queue for inspection also perished in the accident.

However the fate of the lorry driver, his turn boy together with the two traffic officers, who were manning the road block, could not be immediately established.

Nyanza provincial Deputy Police boss Larry Kieng, who led officers in the rescue mission, said the confirmed number of those who had perished was 25.

“So far 25 bodies had been taken to the New Nyanza provincial hospital mortuary and we fear other bodies are still within the vicinity. With darkness we might have left some bodies,” he said.

The scene of the accident, in the outskirts of Kisumu city, was littered with body parts and valuables belonging to the passengers.

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Bodies with missing heads, limbs and other body parts were scattered all over the place.

Kenya Red Cross Society officials, who rushed to the scene, had a hectic time pulling out the bodies from the wreckage as local residents barred police officers from accessing the scene.

Police were at some point forced to use teargas to drive away angry residents, who blamed them for the accident saying they used the road block to extort money from motorists.

The accident also caused a heavy traffic snarl up along the busy road.

The mangled vehicles were towed to Kondele police station as police launched investigations into the accident that left locals in shock.

Mamboleo area has been a black spot claiming several lives in the recent past with most notably the death of musician Owino Misiani six years ago who died at the same police road block.

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