Salama crash: 17 pilgrims killed in horrific multi-vehicle highway collision
Grieving families and relatives gathered at St Mathias Mulumba Catholic Church in the Mikindani parish in Mombasa. Seventeen pilgrims died in a road accident at Salama while travelling to Subukia.
Photo credit: Kevin Odit | Nation
UPDATE 11:30 am:
President William Ruto sends his heartfelt condolences to the families who lost their loved ones in the Salama Crash.
In a tweet, Dr Ruto wrote, "Deeply saddened by the tragic loss of 17 pilgrims from St. Mathias Mulumba Catholic Church, Mikindani Parish, in a road accident at Salama while travelling to the National Shrine in Subukia for the National Prayer Day.
Our heartfelt condolences go to the families, friends, parishioners and the entire Catholic community who are mourning this painful loss. We stand with them in this difficult moment and pray that God grants them strength, comfort and peace. We also pray for the swift recovery of those injured in the accident. May the souls of the departed rest in eternal peace."
UPDATE 11:00 am:
The families of the 17 Catholic pilgrims who perished in the 1 am accident while travelling to the Subukia Shrine for prayers have been asked by the police to travel to Sultan Hamud to identify their loved ones' bodies.
The families are due to leave Mikindani in Mombasa County in an hour.
Seventeen people were killed and six others injured on Saturday in a grisly road accident which involved multiple vehicles at Salama along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway.
Makueni County Commissioner Abdullahi Khalif confirmed that those who perished were passengers in a 14-seater matatu which was caught up in the 1 am accident.
Grieving families and relatives gathered at St Mathias Mulumba Catholic Church in the Mikindani parish in Mombasa. Seventeen pilgrims died in a road accident at Salama while travelling to Subukia.
Photo credit: Kevin Odit | Nation
Catholic Church has since revealed that the 17 victims were parishioners of a church in Mikindani, Mombasa, who were travelling to Subukia, Nakuru County, for prayers.
"We are saddened and grief-stricken to announce the untimely passing of seventeen pilgrims from St Mathias Mulumba, Mikindani, in an accident that occurred at Salama. The pilgrims were on their way to the national shrine, Subukia, for the national prayer say," the head of the Catholic church in Mombasa Diocese, Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde, said in a statement.
Grieving families and relatives gathered at St Mathias Mulumba Catholic Church in the Mikindani parish in Mombasa. Seventeen pilgrims died in a road accident at Salama while travelling to Subukia.
Photo credit: Kevin Odit | Nation
Witnesses said the matatu was heading towards Nairobi when the accident occurred. It was caught up in a chain of collisions involving two trucks.
"A truck which was heading towards Mombasa rammed into the matatu after being hit from behind by another truck," a police source told the Daily Nation on condition of anonymity, as protocol bars him from addressing the media.
"We have discharged six survivors of the accident who had sustained minor injuries. The driver of one of the trucks sustained head and abdominal injuries. We referred him to the Makueni County Referral Hospital," said Stephen Mwangangi, medical superintendent at Sultan Hamud Sub-County Referral Hospital.
Follow our WhatsApp channel for breaking news updates and more stories like this.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.