Data from Malawi Police Service indicates that during the Christmas period more road accidents have happened leading to 11 deaths and 34 injuries.

Accidents that occurred between midnight of December 24 and 27 represented a 10 percent increase from last year’s 10 deaths, while the number of people injured during the Christmas celebrations has gone down by 26.1 percent from last year’s 46 road accidents.

The data further indicates that the Central East Police Region recorded four deaths out of five road accidents while South West, Central West and Eastern police regions recorded two deaths each against 11, 10 and four road accidents, respectively.

According to National Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya most of the road accidents were due to speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol.

Kalaya said, “We believe that the main reason for the reduction in road accidents is the strategies we are using such as deploying traffic officers to work day and night during the festive season. Officers have been on all the major roads in the country with breathalysers.”

The road accidents have also decreased to about 16.3 percent from last year’s 43 to 36 in 2022.