Risky roads: South Sudan’s dire record for traffic safety

South Sudan has a limited road infrastructure but many accidents, including at least three people killed every day on the road between the South Sudanese capital, Juba, to the border town of Nimule, according to South Sudan’s Directorate of Road safety, part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Concrete numbers are hard to come by but in the year 2010, the last data available, there were 1,404 accidents in the capital Juba alone and 92 people were killed.

Wayward driving and a lack of regulations often cause fatalities. For example, more than 60 people were killed on the Juba-Nimule road when a passenger bus crashed head-on with a truck carrying goods from Uganda last September. Police officials blamed the accident on a truck driving on the wrong side of the road, sparking the head-on collision.

Dr. Abraham Adut Abenego, Director at the Accidents and Emergency Department at Juba Teaching Hospital, says bad road practices are behind the country’s high number of accidents. “Especially at the weekends you expect a large number of patients to come in because of car accidents - some are drunk,” he says.

He added that his hospital may receive up to 80 patients involved in road accidents in one day.