YEMEN RECORDS UP 250 ROAD ACCIDENTS IN WEEK

SANA'A, Nov. 14 (Saba) – Over 254 traffic accidents have claimed the lives of 54 people and left 127 people with serious injuries during last week across the country.

According to official statistics, key reasons for the accidents were driver negligence, high speed, using cell phone, chewing qat, wrong overtaking and technical faults.

The statistics made it clear that the accidents had led to material losses amounted over YR 13.6 million.

Since 2000, the accidents caused the death of nearly 22,000 people and injured more than 159,000 in addition to over 23 billion were material losses of the accidents.

Yemen is currently preparing a National Traffic Safety Strategy aims to ensure a safe traffic movement and to reduce traffic congestion in several cities of Yemen in order to protect the society from traffic accidents' bad effects and deepen awareness of traffic cultural among society members.

The draft strategy includes the current situation and the traffic problems in addition to its human and material damages that cause a huge number of deaths and injuries.

Traffic accidents in Yemen are still killing hundreds of people monthly, and they left many deaths and injuries and widow women and orphans children.

Several reasons cause these accidents; the concerned authorities mention few of them and ignore the other ones which reveal that they are directly or indirectly responsible.

International expert in traffic safety at the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Bassam Anani said that Yemen is one the most affected countries by the traffic accidents.

He pointed out that the numbers of deaths are monitored represent only 70 percent of the actual numbers because some accidents are not proclaimed.

Moreover, this figure represents the deaths occurred in the scene while the deaths that occur later on in hospitals are not mentioned.

He said that traffic accidents represent an economic obstacle rather than the bad humanitarian and social impacts that case a developmental retardation in the country.

FJ/YA