Traffic accident on Erbil-Mosul road leaves 14 casualties
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A traffic accident on the Erbil-Mosul road on Saturday left two people dead and 12 others injured.
A security source in the area told local media that the incident occurred when a van carrying 14 people overturned on the road linking the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil and Mosul.
Two people died at the scene while the others suffered various injuries, the source added, noting the bodies were sent to a forensic department in Erbil and the injured taken to a nearby hospital.
According to statistics for 2018, various traffic accidents across the Kurdistan Region had killed 602 people and injured thousands more.
In the autonomous region’s capital of Erbil alone, 1,384 traffic accidents occurred last year that resulted in the death of 262 people, the General-Directorate of Erbil Traffic Policesaid. The accidents also wounded 1,401 more people.
Meanwhile, in the province of Sulaimani, which also includes Halabja province, 224 people died, and 3,489 more were injured from 1,011 traffic accidents, statistics from the Sulaimani Traffic Police Directorate show.
The province of Duhok lies at the bottom of the list in terms of human casualties. In 2018, 116 people died from 1,089 traffic accidents in the governorate, and 1,084 more were wounded.
Many of the accidents are caused by drivers’ failure to abide by traffic laws while others are related to the poor quality of roads in the Kurdistan Region.