33 dead in Sudan bus collision: police

KHARTOUM: Thirty-three people were killed and 24 injured when two inter-city buses collided in Sudan late Wednesday, in one of the country’s worst road accidents in years, police said.
The crash between a full-sized passenger bus and a minibus occurred near the small community of El Kamlien, about halfway between Khartoum and Wad Medani.
“The minibus tried to overtake another vehicle and then collided with the bus,” which was traveling in the opposite direction, a police statement said.
Deadly road accidents, often involving buses, are relatively common in Sudan, where driving skills are poor.
The latest follows complaints by city bus drivers in Khartoum that Sudan’s surging inflation and sinking currency have driven maintenance costs out of control.
In October, 13 people died and 26 were injured when a passenger bus blew a tire and collided with a minibus on the road to Wad Medani southeast of the capital, official media reported at the time.
Twenty-one people died in April 2009 when a bus and a truck collided south of Khartoum.