At least 17 children are among 76 people that have di£d after a horror crash between a bus, a motorbike and a lorry.
The bus, which was carrying refugees, burst into a fireball after colliding with the other lorry and motorbike.
Horrific photos from the scene in Afghanistan’s Herat province show the bus on fire as passers-by try desperately to douse the flames.
Ahmadullah Muttaqi, the Taliban’s director of information and culture, said the bus was carrying Afghan refugees that had been deported from Iran. Everyone aboard the bus was k!lled, as well as two people from the other vehicles, he said.
Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, spokesman for the Herat provincial government, said: “Seventy-six citizens of the country […] lost their lives in the incident, and three others were seriously injured. All the passengers were migrants who had boarded the vehicle in Islam Qala.”
Herat police said the accident happened because of the bus driver’s “excessive speed and negligence”.
The bus was carrying Afghans recently returned by Iran to the Afghan capital of Kabul.
In recent months Iran has stepped up its deportations of undocumented Afghan migrants who have fled conflict in their homeland. The country had previously given a July deadline for undocumented Afghans to depart voluntarily.
