Twelve schoolchildren and their driver died on Wednesday, July 10, 2024 when their minibus overturned and caught fire in Gauteng province, South Africa. The crash occurred in the town of Merafong, west of Johannesburg, a day after schools reopened following the winter holidays.
“The pupils’ transport was hit from behind by a bakkie, causing it to overturn and subsequently catch fire,” said Gauteng education department spokesman Steve Mabona. A bakkie is a small truck similar to a pickup that transports commercial goods across South Africa.
Television footage showed the charred remains of the minibus, with schoolbooks scattered across the landscape. Sello Maremane, a spokesman for the Gauteng traffic police department, noted that the children were “burnt beyond recognition,” and forensic experts would need to identify the victims. The driver of the bakkie was also hospitalized.
Authorities confirmed that 11 of the children who died attended Rocklands Primary School, while one attended Laerskool Blyvooruitsig in Carletonville. The ages of the children involved are not yet known, although the schools they attended typically enroll children between the ages of six and 13.
Seven other children were injured and taken to a nearby hospital in Carletonville for treatment. By late afternoon, most of the injured children had been released, according to local reports.
Gauteng provincial government head Panyaza Lesufi and other officials visited the crash site and the hospital to support the affected families. “This event profoundly saddens me,” said Gauteng Education Minister Matome Chiloane. “The loss of our children is a devastating blow to our community.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his condolences and stressed the importance of ensuring children’s safety. “This tragedy, which is not the first of its kind, demands that we exercise our obligation to protect our children with the utmost care,” he said.
This accident has sparked calls for stricter regulations and better enforcement of existing road safety laws. “I have always said to parents we need to check the condition of the vehicles that we put our kids in,” Chiloane remarked at the scene.
South Africa boasts one of the continent’s most advanced road networks but also suffers from some of the poorest road safety statistics. In March, 45 people heading to a religious event were killed when their bus plunged off a bridge into a ravine in the north of the country. The bus traveled from neighboring Botswana to Moria, where an Easter pilgrimage and service have attracted more than a million worshippers in recent years.
In February, at least nine supporters of the African National Congress party died in a bus crash while returning from an electoral rally in the east of the country.
In May, 13 people were killed in a head-on collision between a minibus taxi and a truck on a major road in the northern province of Limpopo.
South Africa’s Automobile Association (AA) has described the nation’s yearly road fatality numbers as “a national crisis.” According to data published by the AA last year, 12,436 individuals lost their lives on South African roads between January 2022 and December 2022. This figure is slightly lower than the 12,541 deaths recorded during the same period in 2021.
