An overloaded truck carrying Afghan families returning from Pakistan crashed in eastern Afghanistan on May 30, killing at least 22 people and injuring 36 others, local officials said.
The accident occurred near the Surkhakan intersection in the Qarghayi district of Laghman Province on the Kabul–Jalalabad highway, a key route linking the Afghan capital with the Torkham border crossing into Pakistan.
Mawlawi Aminullah Sharif, Nangarhar’s provincial public health director, said an earlier death toll of 18 had risen to 22 after several victims succumbed to their injuries in hospital.
Preliminary investigations indicate the driver fell asleep at the wheel, causing the heavily overloaded vehicle to leave the road and plunge into a ditch, Sharif said.
Another Afghan official told the AFP news agency that least 12 children were among the fatalities.
Emergency responders transported the wounded to nearby medical facilities in Nangarhar Province, where several passengers remain in critical condition.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a post on X that he was “deeply saddened” by the tragedy and offered prayers “for the swift recovery of the injured.”
The victims were among a growing number of Afghans returning from Pakistan under Islamabad’s Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan, a government campaign launched to remove undocumented foreign nationals, most of them Afghans.
According to figures from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration, more than 447,000 Afghans have returned from Pakistan since the start of 2026.
Aid groups say many returnees arrive with limited resources and often travel in overcrowded commercial trucks due to a lack of affordable transport options.
Fatal road accidents are common in Afghanistan, where decades of conflict have left much of the transport infrastructure in poor condition, while dangerous driving practices and a lack of regulation also contribute to frequent traffic fatalities.
