On Saturday, seven people were killed in a traffic accident after two cars collided, in the east of the country.
The accident occurred on the Coastal Road between Ras Lanuf and Sidra. An entire family of five died, in addition to two other victims in the other car.
The two cars caught fire, and firefighters tried to control the intensely burning flames, which left the two vehicles charred.
In October 2022, a family of eight were killed in a traffic accident in the Umm Al-Gharaniq area, east of Sirte.
The incident occurred after a small car and a passenger bus collided with a herd of camels on the Ras Lanuf-Ajdabiya road. A man, his wife, four sons, and two daughters were killed in the accident.
The phenomenon of loose camels is widespread on highways, in several regions of Libya. These are known to cause traffic accidents, resulting in human and material losses.
In 2021, the then-Interior Ministry of the Government of National Accord (GNA) announced that 1,761 deaths were recorded in 4,131 traffic accidents between January-November 2020.
The ministry noted in a statement that 1,743 people were severely injured, and 1,532 others sustained minor injuries.
“As a result of those accidents, 6,641 cars were damaged, while the total value of losses was estimated at 280 million Libyan Dinars.
In 2019, Libya recorded 1,115 traffic accidents with 1,409 deaths, and registered over 2,500 deaths in 2018. “Libya holds the (world) record for the number of deadly road accidents per capita,” the former spokesman for the GNA’s Traffic Department Colonel Abdel-Nasser Ellafi said.
Libya suffers from fragility in its vital institutions, due to the division of powers between two conflicting administrations. Libyan security announces, sequentially, the seizure of vehicles without license plates.
The north-African country has been in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The county has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments.
