A bus full of schoolchildren returning from a trip veered off the road in Uganda, killing at least 20 children and one adult.
The bus from King David Junior School in the capital, Kampala, was returning from a school trip to Sipi Falls in Kapchorwa District late Thursday when it veered off the road, according to preliminary investigations by the police.
"The driver reportedly lost control of the vehicle, which veered off the road, struck a large stone along the roadside, and overturned," police said in a statement on X on Friday.
"The crash claimed the lives of one adult male and 20 pupils, while three adult males and several juveniles sustained injuries," it added. The founder of King David Junior School is amongst the dead.
Police shared an image of a badly mangled and overturned bus, and said investigations were ongoing, with several children and adults receiving treatment.
Local Government Minister Balaam Barugahara Ateenyi said he visited the injured children alongside Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations Simon Mulongo.
Road safety in Uganda
Fatal bus accidents are relatively common in Uganda.
It follows May crashes involving a Gulu Secondary School bus in Kigumba that killed a conductor and injured 17 students, and another crash in Gomba District that claimed six people travelling to a wedding.
In October, two buses collided on a major highway, killing at least 46 people.
Uganda recorded 26,044 road crashes in 2025, up from 25,107 in 2024, according to the Uganda Police annual crime report released in March.
Of those, 4,602 were fatal, claiming more than 5,300 lives.
Police attribute more than 40 percent of crashes to reckless driving, including speeding, dangerous overtaking and tailgating.
The succession of fatal crashes has intensified calls for the rollout of the revised Electronic Penalty System (EPS), which uses cameras and automated number plate recognition technology to detect speeding and other traffic violations in real time.
The government says the system will complement about 2,000 traffic officers policing Uganda’s rapidly growing vehicle population, with officials arguing that continuous automated enforcement is essential to reducing preventable road deaths.
