KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – In the first incident, three people lost their lives after a traffic collision in Muqur district of Ghazni Province. The Taliban’s provincial police command said the crash occurred on Wednesday morning (February 18) in the Bazko area along the Kabul–Kandahar highway, when a cargo truck collided with a passenger vehicle.
Officials attributed the accident to driver negligence.
A day earlier, six people were killed in two separate traffic incidents in the same province, underscoring growing concerns about road safety in the region.
In a separate accident, three more people were killed and two others injured after a passenger vehicle veered off the road and plunged into a river in Laghman Province, local authorities said.
According to Mohammad Younus Yousafzai, spokesperson for the Taliban’s police command in Laghman, the incident took place at around 9:30am on Wednesday in the Pul-e-Istahkam area along the Kabul–Jalalabad highway. He said the body of one victim was swept away by the river and has not yet been recovered.
The injured were transferred to local health centers for treatment. Officials said the crash was caused by reckless driving.
The Kabul–Jalalabad highway is one of the country’s busiest routes, and traffic accidents have repeatedly occurred there due to speeding, poor road conditions and a lack of traffic signs.
Road accidents remain a major concern across Afghanistan. Each year, hundreds of people are killed and many more injured in traffic-related incidents, with authorities frequently citing driver negligence, damaged infrastructure and limited enforcement of traffic regulations as key factors.
