Friday evening, the commune of Bimbo, south of Bangui, was plunged into horror. A tanker truck carrying diesel lost control on Rue des Sœurs, a particularly busy road at that hour. Residents were walking along the street, others were shopping or tending their small stalls at the roadside. Within seconds, the vehicle overturned, cutting down everything in its path.
The death toll, still provisional as of Sunday evening, keeps climbing. The Central African government, through its spokesman Evariste Ngamana, first reported eight deaths and around ten injured, while noting that the count was likely to change. A hospital source quickly revised that figure upward to the AFP, citing around fifteen deaths. Several media outlets, including RFI, are now putting the toll at around twenty deaths, a figure that better reflects the scale of the disaster as described by witnesses on the ground.
The exact circumstances of the accident have yet to be established. According to witnesses interviewed by AFP, the truck skidded before striking several people. Quentin Claver Ngbouabo, coordinator of a civil society platform, confirmed that the heavy vehicle was indeed carrying diesel. Other sources point to a possible technical failure in the vehicle’s air system, a theory that has not yet been officially confirmed. Speeding and overloading are also among the explanations being floated, though none has been singled out at this stage.
At the scene, the situation is described as chaotic. Bodies were found scattered around the wreckage, some thrown by the force of impact, others trapped beneath the overturned truck. Emergency responders had to contend with the usual crowds of this busy Bimbo neighborhood to free the victims and organize evacuations. The injured, several in critical condition, were rushed to hospitals in the capital, where medical staff are working to stabilize the most severe cases.
The government has announced the opening of a judicial investigation to determine the exact causes of the tragedy and, if warranted, establish responsibility. The announcement comes as the Central African Republic goes through a particularly deadly stretch on its roads: just three days earlier, another accident involving a truck and a motorcycle had already claimed at least five lives near Gaga, in the Ombella-M’Poko prefecture.
This string of road disasters is once again raising questions about safety on Central African highways. Overloaded trucks, aging infrastructure, insufficient enforcement: the same causes recur from one accident to the next, with no lasting measures in sight capable of stopping this silent carnage. In Bangui, anger is now mixing with grief, as many families of the victims still wait to identify their loved ones.
The death toll, as these lines are written, remains open. Authorities themselves acknowledge it could still rise in the coming hours, as the condition of the most severely injured continues to evolve.
