Minibus accident kills over a dozen, mostly children, in southern Pakistan

At least 20 people died in a minibus accident when the vehicle crashed into a deep and water-logged ditch in southern Pakistan, police have said on Friday. 

Eleven of the 20 killed were children.

Pakistan has a staggeringly high rate of road deaths, blamed on decrepit highways and reckless driving.

Late on Thursday in Sindh province, the bus "fell into a water-filled ditch on a road swept away by floods this summer", local police official Khadim Hussain told AFP.

"The driver could not see the diversion sign on the road and so the van plunged into a 25-foot (eight-metre) deep ditch" near the town of Sehwan Sharif.

Hussain said the children killed were between two and eight years old, likely sitting on their parents' laps when they were fatally injured.

A further 14 people were injured in the accident.

Pakistan was lashed by record monsoon rains this year that put a third of the country underwater, displaced eight million people and battered its already crumbling infrastructure.

Credible research has linked catastrophic flooding to climate crisis.

According to World Health Organization estimates, more than 27,000 people were killed on Pakistan's roads in 2018.

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