At least 24 people including a newborn baby were killed and another 17 others injured some seriously, when a bus heading to Uganda collided with a truck coming from Uganda and then overturned at Nesitu Bridge along the Juba-Nimule highway on Monday morning.

Police authorities have blamed the accident on over-speeding and wrongly overtaking another vehicle by a driver who lost control.

The head of traffic police at Gumbo area First Lieutenant Grace Kuor told Radio Tamazuj this afternoon that the Bakuku bus was travelling to Kampala when the incident occurred at Nesitu Bridge at 6:00 a.m., describing the accident as “unfortunate.”

Grace further said about 24 people including a 4-month year old baby were found dead and another 17 others wounded.

Bino Andrea, a doctor at Juba Teaching Hospital said they received about 28 dead bodies this morning and another 16 wounded in an accident along the Juba-Nimule road.

“We actually received about 16 injured, but unfortunately one of them died later. So the number of dead people rose from 28 to 29 people,” he noted.

An eyewitness at the scene also told Radio Tamazuj that she saw blood gushing out of the bus after it had overturned.

“I could not even know the number of dead bodies because they were rounded up and police officers were at scene,” she said.

Deadly accidents and over-speeding have become common since the first 192 km paved highway linking the South Sudan capital with Uganda was officially inaugurated in 2012.