According to state-affiliated media, at least seven civilians were killed and four others were seriously injured in two separate traffic accidents in the provinces of Kermanshah and Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan.
On the morning of Sunday, 27 Mehr, a severe collision between a passenger car and a cargo truck occurred on the main Saqqez–Baneh road near the Garowe-Khan area, resulting in the death of all five passengers in the vehicle.
At the same time, in Kianshahr district of Kermanshah, a minibus carrying schoolchildren was involved in another serious accident. Two children lost their lives, and four students along with the driver were transferred to hospital with critical injuries. State media reported that the condition of all the injured remains highly critical.
In Iran, thousands of people die on the roads every year. According to official data from the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization and the National Statistics Center, more than 21,000 people were killed and over 350,000 injured in road accidents in 2023 alone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks Iran among the top ten countries in the world for road fatalities, with a mortality rate of about 21 to 24 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to the global average of around 16.
Economically, according to the Research Center of the Iranian Parliament, the direct and indirect costs of road accidents in Iran are estimated at 8 to 12 billion USD annually. Another study by the Road and Transportation Institute places this figure at up to 17 billion USD, roughly 4 to 7 percent of the country's GDP—which exceeds the entire official annual budget for healthcare, education, and infrastructure in many provinces.
