Kabul, Aug 20: At least 76 people, including 17 children, were killed in western Afghanistan when a bus carrying recently deported refugees from Iran collided with a motorcycle and a fuel truck, bursting into flames, officials said.
Provincial government spokesman Ahmadullah Muttaqi confirmed the death toll, while police blamed excessive speed and driver negligence for the accident on the route to Kabul. Only three passengers survived.
The victims had boarded the bus at the Islam Qala border crossing after being deported from Iran, provincial official Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi said. Two people in the truck and two on the motorcycle were also among the dead.
The tragedy comes amid mass deportations of Afghan refugees from Iran, where Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni recently announced that around 800,000 people would be expelled by March.
