Uganda school bus crash kills at least 21: police

It follows May crashes involving a Gulu Secondary School bus in Kigumba that killed a conductor and injured 17 students, and another crash in Gomba District that claimed six people travelling to a wedding.

In October, two buses collided on a major highway, killing at least 46 people.

Uganda recorded 26,044 road crashes in 2025, up from 25,107 in 2024, according to the Uganda Police annual crime report released in March.

Of those, 4,602 were fatal, claiming more than 5,300 lives.

Police attribute more than 40 percent of crashes to reckless driving, including speeding, dangerous overtaking and tailgating.

The succession of fatal crashes has intensified calls for the rollout of the revised Electronic Penalty System (EPS), which uses cameras and automated number plate recognition technology to detect speeding and other traffic violations in real time.

The government says the system will complement about 2,000 traffic officers policing Uganda’s rapidly growing vehicle population, with officials arguing that continuous automated enforcement is essential to reducing preventable road deaths.