KHARTOUM (TIP): Thirty-three people were killed and twenty four injured when two inter-city buses collided in Sudan in one of the country’s worst road accidents in years, police said. The crash between a full-sized passenger bus and a minibus occurred near the small community of El Kamlien, about halfway between Khartoum and Wad Medani late yesterday. “The minibus tried to overtake another vehicle and then collided with the bus,” which was travelling in the opposite direction, a police statement said.

Deadly road accidents, often involving buses, are relatively common in Sudan, where driving skills are poor. There have been complaints by city bus drivers in Khartoum that Sudan’s surging inflation and sinking currency have driven maintenance costs out of control. In October, 13 people died and 26 were injured when a passenger bus blew a tyre and collided with a minibus on the road to Wad Medani southeast of the capital, country’s media reported at the time. Twenty-one people died in April 2009 when a bus and a truck collided south of Khartoum.