Unlicensed driver killed in Paphos accident

ONE fatality and three serious injuries is the toll of the latest deadly road accident which took place in Paphos on Sunday evening.

The latest casualty is 21-year-old Ahmad Ahmad Alkalaf, a Syrian national, the driver of the car that caused the fierce collision just outside the community of Emba. According to eyewitnesses, Alkalaf failed to stop at an intersection, and was rammed by an oncoming jeep driven by a 42-year-old and his 18-year-old daughter as passenger.

The impact threw the jeep off course, and it in turn smashed into a third vehicle, driven by a 66-year-old woman and her husband on the passenger seat.

Alkalaf was critically injured and rushed to Paphos general hospital; he succumbed to his injuries later the same night. His 16-year-old passenger, also from Syria, is in serious condition, as are also the 66-year-old woman and her husband in the third car. The two people aboard the jeep suffered slight injuries, were treated at Paphos general and discharged.

According to the police, Alkalaf did not have a driver’s licence and was operating the saloon, which was in rundown condition, without an MOT. The car was a heap of mangled metal.

Paphos Traffic Police are still unclear about the precise circumstances of the accident, but it is believed that Alkalaf was speeding at the time.

The Syrian is the fourth fatality in Paphos in the last week, and the eighth since the beginning of the year.

Last Saturday, a 13-year-old boy, riding passenger on a scooter, died after the bike veered off the road

Thimos Psathis, head of Paphos Traffic Police, said the intersection on the Emba-Tala road had adequate signs, but conceded that perhaps more precautions could have been taken.

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