A devastating highway crash near the Algerian coastal city of Boumerdes, located just east of the capital Algiers, has claimed the lives of at least 25 people and left scores more injured, local government officials confirmed in a statement released Friday.
Algeria’s national civil protection department has announced that the root cause of the accident remains under active investigation, with no preliminary conclusions released to the public as of press time. All injured passengers have been rapidly evacuated to adjacent medical facilities across the region to receive urgent, life-saving care.
Algerian Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb traveled to the crash site shortly after the incident to assess the response and speak directly with first responders and emergency service personnel deployed to the scene. Photographs from the location show the overturned passenger coach resting at the bottom of a deep ravine adjacent to the roadway.
This fatal crash is the latest in a string of deadly traffic incidents that have plagued Algeria’s road network in recent years. Last August, a separate bus collision close to Algiers resulted in 18 fatalities, per reporting from Agence France-Presse. Just four months later, in December 2024, another bus overturning in the southern Algerian region of Bechar killed 14 people.
Official data from Algerian road safety regulators underscores the severity of the country’s road safety crisis: in 2024 alone, a total of 3,838 people lost their lives in road accidents across the nation, while more than 37,000 others sustained non-fatal injuries in collisions and other incidents.