Four new immigrants from Ethiopia were among six people killed yesterday in the first major road accident of 1985. Two people were killed and seven were seriously injured in six other road accidents during the first 24 hours of the new year.
The total for the day was eight fatalities and 20 injuries. The number of fatalities was increased to nine by the death of an Arab boy injured in a road accident last Friday.
The rash of highway carnage was an ironic counterpoint to Transport Minister Haim Corfu’s upbeat announcement on New Year’s Eve that there had been a five percent drop in road accidents in 1984, a 10 percent decline in road fatalities and a six percent drop in injuries from road accidents.
The Ethiopian Jews, a new immigrant from Argentina, and a sixth person were killed when a truck carrying workers from new immigrant centers in the Beersheba area to Sderot, ran off the road. As the driver tried to get back on the pavement, his vehicle overturned and skidded on its side into the opposite lane where it was hit by an army bus. Three of the bus passengers were slightly injured.
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