SANAA, 30 July 2006 — Twelve people were killed and nine others injured when two minivans filled with passengers collided on a highway in western Yemen yesterday, police said.
The accident took place when a minivan taxi carrying 11 people heading from the port city of Houdieda to the southern Taiz province collided head-on with another taxi driving in the opposite direction with 10 people onboard.
Hospital sources said eight people, including a woman, died on the spot and four others died in a hospital in Taiz.
Poor conditions of roads, reckless driving and speeding are blamed as the main causes of road accidents in Yemen, where more than 2,000 people die every year in road mishaps.
Nineteen people were killed in a similar accident in Houdieda on June 29.
Some 2,510 people died and more than 16,000 were injured in traffic accidents in Yemen last year, according to a police statistics.
Some 22,800 people were killed and more than 136,000 injured in around 129,000 accidents in Yemen between 1990 and 2004.
