A bus carrying mourners back home from a funeral in southwestern Kenya has overturned and plunged into a ditch, killing at least 21 people, police said.
The bus was travelling from the western town of Kakamega to the city of Kisumu, where the accident happened.
The driver lost control of the bus as it approached a roundabout at high speed and plunged into a ditch, according to Peter Maina, a regional traffic enforcement officer for the province of Nyanza, where Kisumu is located.
“The vehicle lost control, veered, rolled onto the other side of the road,” he told reporters at the scene.
“Amongst the 21 who lost their lives were 10 women, and a girl aged 10, and 10 men,” he said.
Five people were seriously hurt in the incident, Maina said, among them an eight-month-old baby who was currently receiving care at a nearby hospital.
The cause of the crash was not clear and investigations were ongoing. Local media reported the incident took place on a notorious section of road where collisions are frequent.
The deadly accident follows an aircraft crash near the capital, Nairobi, on Thursday, when an air ambulance came down in a residential area, killing six people.
The same day, local media reported that a collision between a train and bus killed eight.
Road accidents are common in Kenya and the wider East African region, where roads are often narrow and in poor condition with many potholes.
Police often blame road accidents on speeding drivers.
In another accident on Thursday, nine people were killed in a bus crash in the town of Naivasha in the county of Nakuru. The victims were among 32 workers going to work when the bus crashed at a railway crossing, police said.
Police said the driver lost control of the bus in the accident on Friday [Brian Ongoro/AP]
