Nyusi visits victims

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday paid a visit to Maputo Central Hospital (HCM), the country’s largest health unit, where victims of the deadly accident on Saturday night on the main north-south highway (EN1) in Manhica district, Maputo province, are receiving specialist health care. At the hospital, Nyusi visited several wards, especially the orthopedic ward, where most of the victims of the road accident have been admitted, and received detailed explanations from Health Minister Armindo Tiago, and from the hospital management.

“I have visited various wards in the hospital as I wanted to assess the problem,” Nyusi said. He added that the most important thing at the moment was to find out why road accidents are so frequent so that they can be avoided in the future. Nyusi said that, at its weekly meeting on Tuesday, the cabinet will assess the accident and give indications on how the government will handle the problem.

The Saturday night tragedy involved three vehicles. A bus, carrying passengers from Beira to Maputo, attempted to overtake a truck carrying construction sand, at a point in the road where it is clearly marked that no overtaking is permitted. The bus smashed head on with an articulated lorry travelling in the opposite direction. In a desperate attempt to return to the correct lane, the bus also hit the truck it had been overtaking. 31 bus passengers died on the spot, and 11 seriously injured people were taken to Maputo Central Hospital where one subsequently died. Briefing reporters, the Director of the HCM Emergency Services, Madalena Manjate, said the ten survivors were still regarded as at risk. “Among the patients we admitted, three underwent urgent surgery performed by the orthopedic staff and are now receiving medical care after the fractures. We have another patient in the Intensive Care Surgical Unit who suffered serious head injuries,” Manjate said.

She added that there is also another patient admitted to the maxillofacial ward, two others are in general surgical ward, and a two year old child will undergo paediatric surgery.

The hospital had successfully performed several blood transfusions after the accident, but this has depleted the hospital’s blood supplies. Manjate appealed to blood donors to come forward and donate the lifesaving liquid.

She urged motorists to avoid excessive speed and not to take the steering wheel after drinking alcohol or when overwrought and exhausted. The causes of the accident are still under investigation, but the police believe the bus driver, who is under arrest, was driving much too fast, and attempted to overtake at an inappropriate place. It is also known that there was only one driver on the bus. By road, Beira is over 1,200 kilometres from Maputo, and even under good conditions the journey would take over 16 hours. It is thus more than likely that the driver was suffering from fatigue. The bus is owned by the company Nhancale Transport which, according to the independent television station STV, has not provided any assistance for the injured passengers.

This company has a record of traffic accidents. On 17 December 2016, a Nhancale bus was involved in an accident in Maxixe, in Inhambane province, in which one person died, and 48 others were injured. The bus driver fled from the scene of the accident. On 3 September 2017, a bus from the same company overturned and caught fire, after one of its tyres had burst, in Quissico, also in Inhambane. 12 passengers died, 11 of whom were burnt to a crisp. After this grisly accident, the Ministry of Transport suspended Nhancale – but only for three months. According to the company’s registration in Mozambique’s official gazette, the “Boletim da Republica” of 5 September 2014, its shares, valued at only 100,000 meticais (1,575 US dollars at today’s exchange rate, but worth much more in 2014) are owned by six members of the Nhancale family. 50 per cent of the shares are owed by the company’s manager Joel Manuel Nhancale.