Cameroon Bus Plunge Kills At Least Fourteen

FILE: A bus destroyed in an apparent roll-over crash in Akum, Cameroon. Taken Sept. 9, 2018.

DOUALA - Fourteen people died when a bus plunged off the road in eastern Cameroon, Transport Minister Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe said Wednesday, giving a provisional toll.

The accident happened Tuesday at Lom, a village in Adamaoua region, he said, adding that a 10-year-old child was among the fatalities.

A source in a hospital in nearby Garoua-Boulai listed 68 casualties in all.

Cameroon has among the highest proportion of road deaths in Africa, according to the latest available figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).

In 2018, the central African state had more than 7,000 deaths, or around 30 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the WHO's data.

Cameroon's own tally is far lower, amounting to 963 in 2021, according to transport ministry data published last June.