Crash in Swaziland leaves 38 girls, women dead

A rights group, the Swaziland Solidarity Network, claims that the death toll has risen to 65.

Girls and the young women were supposedly travelling on the rear of an open truck, the rights group said. At the royal residence, about 40,000 participate in the festival, a government website said.

“The least that the royal family can do at this moment is to cancel this year’s reed dance and admit its responsibility in this horrific accident by helping these families bury their children‚” the rights group said in a statement.

A road accident in Swaziland killed 38 girls and seriously injured 20 others who had been on their way to a traditional ceremony where King Mswati III can choose a new wife, pro-democracy activists reported. Swaziland is polygamous and the king has more than a dozen wives.

“We all have heard about the dark cloud that has befallen the ‘imbali, ‘” King Mswati said, using the Swati language word for flower, used to refer to the groups of women dancers.

There were reports that police in the small mountainous country were discouraging reporting on the accident and photographers were being stopped from taking photos. Some, however, were able to take pictures with their cellphones. Witnesses reportedly said traffic police officers pulled over the Toyota and the first truck smashed into it. The second truck crashed into the back of the first truck.

Swaziland, a nation of 1.4 million people landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique, has an absolute monarchy that exerts strict control over the media, according to the press freedom watchdog Freedom House.

The country has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection.