9 people were injured, 8 of them children, in a school bus crash this morning in the Southern district of Diyarbakır province, in southeastern Turkey.
Turkish media reported that the incident occurred in a rural area outside the village of Ziyaret, when the driver of the vehicle, a minibus driven by M.İ., lost control for unknown reasons and went off the road, overturning into a nearby field.
After the emergency services were alerted, several ambulances and gendarmerie units were dispatched to the scene of the accident. The driver and 8 of the students on the bus were taken to hospitals in Diyarbakır, although their condition is reported not serious.
The number of bus accidents has increased worryingly in recent years in Turkey, with around 1,350 accidents with fatalities and injuries in the last 5 years: according to official data, between 2020 and 2023 the number of accidents with casualties in the country increased by 167%, with speeding or excessive working hours of drivers being among the main factors.
However, one of the most serious accidents involving children in recent years occurred in 2016, when a bus carrying a group of primary school students on a trip fell into an irrigation canal, causing 14 deaths, including six children, one of them a baby. The subsequent investigation revealed that the trip was unauthorised and that the bus was overloaded.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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