Balochistan Medical Emergency Response Center Director-General declared the national highways of Balochistan as ‘bloody highways’.He said during the last five years, 64,000 people were injured in 46,000 traffic accidents. There are eight national highways covering 4,500 km in Balochistan. The statistics of accidents in the last five years are alarming. Over 46,000 accidents occurred in the last five years while over 63,000 people were injured in the last five years. For most of the 20th century, the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan lacked good tarmac roads. Its impoverished residents often cursed the bone- jarring journeys they were forced to take on dilapidated roads and dirt tracks in the vast region, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.

But over the past two decades, the construction of new infrastructure across the province is causing alarming numbers of road accidents due to narrow highways, poor safety, speeding traffic, disregard for traffic laws, and few emergency services. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and injured in traffic accidents across Balochistan since the turn of the century. Ghazi Khan, a farmer, knows the danger of Balochistan’s roads. Last month, he lost his 16-year-old son in a head-on collision between his motorcycle and a sedan. Khan says his son and his two friends riding with him fell on the asphalt after their motorbike hit a car. They were then crushed by a speeding flatbed truck. “He left home happy and was on his way to break the Ramadan fast with his friends,” Khan recalled of his son’s last hours. “But his blood-soaked body was soon brought back home,” he added. “His mother and I are still in deep shock.”

Credit: Independent News Pakistan