A tragic road accident in Kenya has claimed the lives of at least 25 people, including a 10-year-old girl, after a bus carrying mourners home from a funeral overturned and plunged into a ditch.
The fatal crash occurred on Friday evening as the bus travelled from Kakamega in western Kenya to Kisumu City. According to police reports, the vehicle was approaching a roundabout at high speed when the driver lost control, causing it to overturn before veering off the road and falling into a ditch.
Peter Maina, a regional traffic enforcement officer for Nyanza Province, confirmed the casualties, stating that among the dead were ten men, ten women, and the young girl, with several others sustaining serious injuries. Authorities fear the death toll could rise due to the critical condition of some survivors.
“Initial investigations suggest speeding played a major role in the accident,” Maina said, adding that poor road conditions, including potholes and narrow lanes, continue to contribute to Kenya’s high rate of road fatalities.
The tragedy comes barely a day after another deadly crash in the town of Naivasha, Nakuru County, which killed nine people and injured several others. In that incident, a bus carrying 32 workers to their workplace collided at a railway crossing.
Kenya, like much of East Africa, has long struggled with road safety. Traffic authorities routinely cite reckless driving, poor road infrastructure, and lax enforcement of safety regulations as leading causes of such deadly accidents.
In a separate aviation tragedy on Saturday, a Cessna Citation XLS aircraft belonging to AMREF Flying Doctors crashed in a residential area in Ruiru, Kiambu County, killing at least six people and injuring two others. The victims included two doctors, two nurses, and two members of the public.
The plane, which took off from Wilson Airport in Nairobi at 2:17 pm en route to Hargeisa, Somalia, lost radio and radar contact just three minutes into its flight. The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that multiple homes were damaged within a 100-metre radius of the crash site.
AMREF Flying Doctors CEO Stephen Gitau expressed deep sorrow over the incident and said the organisation was cooperating fully with aviation authorities and emergency responders to determine the cause of the crash.
These back-to-back tragedies have left Kenya in mourning and renewed calls for urgent measures to improve both road and air safety in the country.
