From: Abdalah Hamis

DAR ES SALAAM, March 29 (Xinhua) — Twelve people, all of them women, died after a pickup in which they were travelling was struck by a lorry from behind on Friday night at Hedaru along the Dar es Salaam-Arusha highway, Tanzania, police said Saturday.

The Kilimanjaro regional police commander Robert Boaz described the accident as the worst which have occurred in northern Tanzania’ s Kilimanjaro region since the beginning of 2014.

The victims were on their way to a funeral of their relative who was killed by ongoing floods across the East Africa country.

Joseph Mwakabonga, the Kilimanjaro regional traffic officer, said the accident occurred when a lorry travelling from Moshi to Dar es Salaam struck from behind the Toyota pickup that was ferrying the mourners.

He said the whereabouts of the drivers of the fateful vehicles were still unknown but eyewitness said they had been rushed to hospital.

Tanzania roads are claiming thousands of lives every year, and most of the accidents are caused by what police term as reckless driving and bad road conditions.