Six dead, one injured in Sulaimani car accident

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Six people died and another was injured in a car accident in Chamchamal in Sulaimani province on Sunday, raising the spotlight once again on the dilapidated state of roads in the Kurdistan region leaving several thousand people dead and wounded every year.

Six people died and another was injured in a car accident in Chamchamal in Sulaimani province on Sunday, the spokesperson for the town’s health directorate told Rudaw.

The car carrying six people and a tanker collided in Chamchamal, about 50 kilometers west of Sulaimani. 

“The accident happened between a truck and a car that had five passengers and a driver, and they all died in the accident,” Sharif Rahim, the spokesperson to Chamchamal’s health directorate told Rudaw.

According to Rahim, those killed include three men, a woman, and two children. The driver of the tanker was also injured.

Thousands of car accidents have occurred across the Kurdistan Region in the first ten months of 2021, according to the region’s traffic police directorate. Officials blame the accidents on negligence by drivers.

“This year from January 1 to October 31, there were 3,509 car accidents,” Abdulqadir Aziz, the general director of the Kurdistan Region’s traffic police directorate said during an interview with Rudaw radio on Sunday. “As a result, 530 people have died and 6,022 people have been injured.”

Aziz said that “the roads are not bad enough to be considered the main reason for car accidents.”

The avoidable deaths of thousands of people every year places a huge toll on the surviving families and the injuries sustained by thousands of others places a huge financial toll on the Kurdistan regional government to import drugs and places extra burden on the health system.