FREETOWN, Jan 30 (Reuters)

- Seventeen people died when a truck with only one headlight ploughed
into a crowd of dancers celebrating at night after a female circumcision
ceremony in Sierra Leone.

"Many of us saw the light of a vehicle but we thought it was a motorcycle
so we did not get worried until the vehicle ran into the crowd,"
Asumamna Bangura, an injured survivor, told reporters.

Police said the accident happened late on Wednesday on the highway
through the northern village of Makorray. Twenty-four men and women
were being treated for serious injuries in the capital, Freetown.


Female circumcision is common in the West African country despite
Western-backed campaigns to eliminate the practice also known as
Female Genital Mutilation.
Wednesday's celebration marked the return of two women who had spent
two months in the bush undergoing initiation rites.


Svend Ole Kvilesjo
Journalist in
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/




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