Tragic car accident kills family of five, injures six more on Eid al-Fitr

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Eid al-Fitr holidays took a tragic turn for one family as a car accident in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province killed five and heavily injured six more, traffic police said on Thursday.

The collision involving two cars happened on the Ba’adre – Shekhan road at around 11:40 pm, local time, on Wednesday night, spokesperson for the Duhok Traffic Police Directorate, Azad Taha, told Kurdistan 24.

The two cars were a taxi and a Hyundai Tucson and all the victims were transferred to a hospital in Duhok following the accident, he added.

One of the families was ethnically Kurdish and the other one Arab.

“The five deaths included parents and three children, and the other six are severely injured,” Taha stated.

The car accident took place in the second day of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and brings Muslim together to celebrate the festival.

Over the past two days, over 30 people have been injured in car accidents in the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

In 2018, 602 people were killed and thousands more injured in car accidents across the Kurdistan Region, according to traffic police statistics.

Many of the accidents are caused by drivers’ failure to abide by traffic laws while others are related to the poor quality of roads in the region.

Editing by Nadia Riva