A car packed with Afghanis smuggled into Iran has collided with another vehicle and burst into flames, killing nine Afghanis and five Iranians, media reports say.
The IRNA news agency said the crash occurred shortly after midnight in the southeastern province of Sistan Baluchistan, on a route Afghanis use to illegally cross the border in the hope of finding work in the Islamic republic.
"The Peugeot 405 was carrying 11 Afghans who had entered the country illegally," traffic official Colonel Farzad Malek Mohammadi said, quoted by IRNA, blaming the drivers for excessive speed and drifting from the road.
"Nine of them died on the spot due to the fire, while the remaining two have been taken to hospital for treatment to serious burns," he said.
Three people in the other car, as well as the drivers of both vehicles, were also killed, he added.
In a similar accident in April a pickup truck smuggling fuel crashed into a car carrying 15 Afghans in southeastern Iran, killing all on board as well as three Iranians.
Nearly a million Afghanis live in Iran illegally, according to official figures released in 2012.
Iran is one of the world's deadliest countries for road accidents.
Some 20,000 people are killed each year in a country with a little over 17 million vehicles for its 75-million-strong population.
Despite the high number of crashes, the authorities say deadly accidents have decreased in recent years as police take a more rigid line on the rules of the road.
Sunday 19 May 2013
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/iran-road-crash-kills-smuggled-afghanis/story-fni0xqlk-1226646323420
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