L
LequteMan
Guest
At least 38 Swazi maidens have died in a road accident on their way to an annual festival in which King Mswati chooses a wife.
Their deaths calls for a cancellation of Monday’s annual event in which tens of thousands of topless teenage virgins dance for King Mswati.
“The girls are packed into these trucks, standing room only, like cattle. This was an accident that was waiting to happen for a long time,” said an eyewitness to the carnage that ensued on Friday night when a truck carrying 50 teenage girls struck a car that police escorts had directed to the roadside.
A second fully-loaded truck slammed into the first lorry from the rear on a decline from a highway bridge in Matsapha, halfway between Manzini and Mswati’s palace at Lozitha.
“According to information gathered, so serious was the accident that the tarmac was awash with blood, and critically injured imbali [maidens] were littered all over the place,” the Swazi Observer newspaper reported on Saturday.
The newspaper hinted at casualties but provided no death figure, while the Times of Swaziland reported seven deaths. On Saturday at least 38 fatalities were reported but without official confirmation.
The Citizen
Their deaths calls for a cancellation of Monday’s annual event in which tens of thousands of topless teenage virgins dance for King Mswati.
“The girls are packed into these trucks, standing room only, like cattle. This was an accident that was waiting to happen for a long time,” said an eyewitness to the carnage that ensued on Friday night when a truck carrying 50 teenage girls struck a car that police escorts had directed to the roadside.
A second fully-loaded truck slammed into the first lorry from the rear on a decline from a highway bridge in Matsapha, halfway between Manzini and Mswati’s palace at Lozitha.
“According to information gathered, so serious was the accident that the tarmac was awash with blood, and critically injured imbali [maidens] were littered all over the place,” the Swazi Observer newspaper reported on Saturday.
The newspaper hinted at casualties but provided no death figure, while the Times of Swaziland reported seven deaths. On Saturday at least 38 fatalities were reported but without official confirmation.
The Citizen
