World Victims Day’ remembered in Thailand

BANGKOK, Nov 18 (TNA) - The Thai government on Sunday participated with the Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in organising the ‘World Victims Day’ in remembrance for those killed or injured in road accidents. The U.N. has fixed the third Sunday of every November each year as the ‘World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims’ and the Thai government has for the first time this year joined the event. Mom Luang Panadda Diskul, deputy permanent secretary for Interior, and Irfan Rahim, UNESCAP’s chief of Transport Infrastructure Section, jointly presided over the event in which participants placed artificial flowers in front of the UNESCAP building in Bangkok. Walkathon activity was held in which representatives of road traffic victims and volunteers marched from the nearby Equestrian Statue to the UNESCAP headquarters. Dr. Taejing Siripanich, secretary general of Drunk Not Drive Foundation, said the U.N. recognises the significance of road accidents because as many as 1.3 million people died and about 50 million suffered either wounds or crippled in road accidents worldwide each year. Most of the victims were aged between 15-29. In Thailand alone, about 12,000 people were killed by road accidents while more than one million people injured annually.The country is now ranked fifth in the world after Brazil, Kenya, India and Cambodia in terms of highest casualties . (TNA)