Yobe Auto Crash Leaves 11 Persons Dead

SAN FRANCISCO, January 08, 2014, (THEWILL) - An auto crash involving a Volkswagen 15-seater bus and a truck along the Damaturu-Potiskum road at Mamudo village in Yobe State on Wednesday has claimed the lives of 11 persons.

Three other persons also sustained varying degrees of injury in the crash.

Confirming this to journalists in Damaturu, the state capital, on Wednesday, the State Unit Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Alhaji Yusuf Garba, said  the auto crash was caused by a burst tyre of the bus travelling from Jos to Maiduguri, which made the driver to lose control of the vehicle before ramming into the truck and eventually landed in a ditch by the road side.

Garba said the 11 persons, made up of six men and five women, were killed on the spot.

Garba, who led a FRSC rescue team to the scene of the accident, also said three other persons, including a 16-year old girl, who were rescued with limbs and spinal cord injuries were taken to a hospital in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

A relation of one of the injured women, Miss Felicia Michika, said she had to travel all the way from Maiduguri to the village, when she heard of the auto crash, involving one of her relations.

'The woman, who sustained spinal cord injuries alongside her 16-year-old  female relative, is my business colleague, and when I heard about the incident involving her, I have no option than to move to the scene to provide assistance.

'When I reached the scene of the accident; I hired a vehicle that conveyed us to this private hospital in Maiduguri, in which they charged each of them N150, 000   for orthopedic surgery.

We are now putting heads together to make sure that we settle all the medical bills, even though, we are not close friends; but we do the same business,' Michika told journalists at the hospital in Maiduguri.