THREE people were killed in two separate crashes in a bad weekend on the roads that also saw three young children seriously injured.
Charalambos Charalambous, 21, Christodoulos Christodoulou, 22, both from Paliometocho, died instantly when their saloon car crashed into a bus stop before careering into an olive tree and being sheared in half.
The accident happened on Archangelos Avenue in the Nicosia suburb of Parisinos at about 5.25am on Sunday.
The two were leaving a Nicosia nightclub. Friends said Charalambous had left the club to go to his brother who had been involved in a minor accident in Kokkinotrimithia. Christodoulou had asked Charalambous to give him a lift home, as he felt too drunk to drive himself.
Paliometocho cancelled its Greek Independence Day celebrations planned for Sunday in a mark of respect for the two men’s families.
A 36-year-old Russian Greek, Petros Aslanides, was also killed on Sunday.
Police said the accident happened at 8pm when Aslanides’ pick-up truck crashed into a Mercedes jeep on the highway between Kofinou and Larnaca.
The driver of the jeep had indicated to another car to pull over onto the hard shoulder because its lights were not working. The driver of the jeep then stopped alongside it, but still on the motorway, to alert the other driver.
Aslanides was coming up behind and ploughed in to the Mercedes, not realising it had stopped. He was killed instantly.
His passenger Lazaros Zoumbalides was seriously injured. Police said Zoumbalides had been wearing his seat belt but Aslanides had not
In other incidents three young children were injured in separate accidents.
Four-year-old Chrystella Chrysostomou was run over while trying to cross Makarios Avenue in Leivadia at 7.30pm on Saturday. She was yesterday being treated in Larnaca hospital and said to be in a serious but stable condition.
Earlier on Saturday, three-and-a-half-year-old Raphael Georgiou was critically injured after being run over trying to cross a road in Xylofagou. He was yesterday on a respirator in Nicosia general hospital.
A second boy, four-and-a-half-year-old Michael Demetris Frixou, was yesterday being treated at Larnaca general hospital after receiving leg injuries during a car accident.
Meanwhile, another three people were seriously injured on Saturday night when their car plunged 100 metres down a ravine on the Palaiochori to Prophitis Elias road in the Troodos mountains.
All three were being treated in Nicosia hospital yesterday but pronounced out of danger.
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