11 dead as bus, lorry collide in Kisumu

By Peter Ochieng

11 people have been confirmed dead, after a passenger bus was involved in a head on collision with a lorry at Ahero junction, in Kisumu County on Monday morning.

Grace Thuo, Nyando Sub-county police commander confirmed the accident.

The accident happened in the wee hours of the morning. 

The Super Metro bus was travelling from Kampala, Uganda to Nairobi, while the lorry was heading towards the opposite direction.

Human rights defender Caren Kiarie told Nairobi Review that 11 people, among them a child died, while over 50 got injured. 

She said several people who got injured were rushed to the Ahero Subcounty hospital, and the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Refferal Hospital (JOOTRH), few kilometers away from the scene.

The lorry was ferrying rice. It is a rice harvesting season in Ahero.

Videos shared online depicted some of the people picking bags of rice at the scene of the accident, attracting Kiarie's condemnation.

"It is so sad that some people have the guts of picking rice from an accident scene. Sad indeed," she said.

This comes days after Kisumu Journalists Network (KJN) chairman Dickens Wasonga died in an accident at Mamboleo junction, along Kisumu-Kakamega highway, on Friday.

He leaves behind a wife and two children who are still in school.

The body is being preserved at the Kwee Funeral Home, a private wing of the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Refferal Hospital.

The family has proposed to have him laid to rest on 8th February, 2024 in Sakwa Bondo, Siaya County.