Staff Reporter

The driver of a minibus taxi that overturned while transporting daycare pupils in KwaMashu, north of Durban, is on the run.

One child died in the crash on Wednesday afternoon, while 14 others were “badly injured,” according to the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport and Human Settlements.

The injured children were taken to Mahatma Ghandi Hospital.

“We are calling upon the driver, who has since disappeared, to hand himself over to the police,” MEC Siboniso Duma said on Thursday.

Police had launched an investigation into the accident, departmental spokesperson Ndabezinhle Sibiya said, and also met with the owner of the minibus, who said the driver reported the crash was caused by brake failure.

“Our Road Traffic Inspectorate is working with SAPS as part of investigating the roadworthiness of the minibus taxi,” Sibiya said.

“The traumatic experience which the children have had to endure will take many years to heal,” he said.

The crash comes as provincial governments across the country have tightened oversight of learner transport following the fatal scholar transport collision in Gauteng in January, when a minibus carrying pupils to school hit a truck near Vanderbijlpark in the Vaal area, killing 14 children. The driver of that scholar transport vehicle has since been charged with murder.

Sibiya said that the province’s health MEC, Nomagugu Simelane, was “ensuring patient quality care to the injured children”. Education MEC Sipho Hlomuka would coordinate interventions “focusing on the welfare of children and teachers”, he said.

The MEC for social development, Mbali Shinga, would deploy social workers “to provide psychosocial support services and trauma counselling to the children and families”.

INSIDE EDUCATION