Seventeen people are nursing severe injuries following a bus accident on the Kampala-Gulu highway in Kiryandongo district.
The accident involving a Kumas bus registration number UAH 496T happened at Namiryango village on Sunday evening.
Zurah Ganyana, the Midwestern regional police publicist says the accident occurred when the Kampala bound bus from Gulu lost control as the driver tried to overtake a land cruiser forcing the bus to veer off the road and overturn.
Ganyana identifies some of the victims as Patrick Okello, the Principal Bwera Teacher Training College in Kasese. Okello’s two relatives, Barbara Namara, a student of Gayaza High School and 11 year old Joram Olara, a pupil of Kings Way Primary School in Entebbe, were also injured in the accident.
Others are Mohammed Bedo, a student nurse attached to Lacor Hospital and a Briton only identified as Helen among others. They were rushed to Kiryandongo hospital.
Sam Tumwesige Mutiti, the Kiryandongo Senior Hospital administrator says three of those admitted were referred to Lacor Hospital in Gulu for treatment for severe head injuries.
Others sustained minor injuries and were given first aid treatment and discharged.
Police says there were about 50 passengers on board and has blamed the accident on reckless driving on the side of the bus driver who is currently on the run.
John Mujungu, an eye witness says the bus overturned several times. Mujungu says it was by luck that the passengers survived.
The badly damaged bus wreckage has been towed to Kiryandongo police station. This is one of the many accidents that police is recording on the Kampala-Gulu highway.
Ganyana says almost every month the police records an accident on the road, with most of them being fatal. She attributes the problem to the narrowness of the road coupled with reckless driving.
On January 9, 2012, seven people died and 13 others were injured in an early morning accident at Kalule village in Luweero on the Kampala-Gulu Highway. The 6am accident occurred after the Gagaa coaches’ bus registration number UAL 158Z rammed into a stationary trailer.
