18 Including 10 Children Die in Eastern Afghanistan Truck Accident

Kabul. AFP has reported, citing provincial officials, that 18 people, including 10 children traveling in a truck, died when the truck overturned and crashed in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday.

According to Abdul Malik Niazi, spokesman for the governor of Laghman province, Afghan families returning from Pakistan were traveling in the truck. The spokesman confirmed that 18 people, including ten children, five women, and three men, died, and added that 29 others were injured.

The truck accident is reported to have occurred on the road between Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and the capital Kabul. Pakistani officials have stated that with the strict rules being implemented on Afghan immigrants and refugees in their country, the number of Afghans returning to their homeland with their belongings in trucks has increased.

According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, 447,400 Afghans have returned to their homeland from Pakistan since the beginning of this year.

Earlier in August, 78 people, including 19 children, died in a collision between a bus carrying Afghan immigrants returning from Iran and two other vehicles in western Afghanistan.