TUNIS, Dec 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 24 Tunisians were killed on Sunday after a bus crashed during an excursion in the northern town of Amdoun, the health ministry said.
The bus veered off a winding road when the driver failed to negotiate a sharp turn and crashed to the bottom of a ravine, the interior ministry said.
The bus was carrying 43 people, officials said.
President Kais Saied and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed attended the crash site in the northwestern region of Tunisia, which attracts large numbers of visitors but has poor infrastructure.
The bus had set off from Tunis to the picturesque northern mountain town of Ain Draham, a popular autumn destination for Tunisians near the Algerian border, the tourism ministry said.
Twenty-four people were killed and 18 injured, the victims aged between 20 and 30, said the health ministry.
A sign reading in English “Sweet Time Travel” – apparently the name of the travel agency that ferried the tourists from Tunis – lay among the debris.
The bus with 43 people on board was travelling through the northern Ain Snoussi region when it veered off the road, the interior ministry said.
The vehicle had “fallen into a ravine after crashing through an iron barrier”, it said on its Facebook page.
The injured were transferred to nearby hospitals, it added.
Tourism Minister Rene Trabelsi told a private radio station Mosaique FM that the “unfortunate accident took place in a difficult area” and just after the bus had taken a “sharp bend”.
The World Health Organization in 2015 said Tunisia had the second worst traffic death rate per capita in North Africa, behind only war-torn Libya. — NNN-AGENCIES
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