Three Moroccan students have died in a traffic accident in Zaporizhzhya, southeastern Ukraine, and three others are injured and receiving treatment at the hospital.
The accident happened on Thursday evening, September 17, local media reported.
According to the local reports, the deceased are two young men and one 17-year-old girl.
The injured Moroccans include a 20-year-old woman and two young men, aged 20 and 23. The survivors sustained “injuries of varying severity.”
Citing police sources, local media said the accident happened at around 8 p.m. after two cars collided.
Initial investigations revealed that the driver of the BMW carrying the Moroccan students lost control of the vehicle and drove into the opposite lane, where the car collided with a second vehicle.
With the crash, the car transporting the Moroccans careened off the road into a billboard post. The second collision caused a fire to ignite that burned the entire car.
The three Moroccan students who died were unable to leave the car, but Ukraine’s police did not yet determine whether they died from the collision or from the fire.
A video shared on social media shows the car burning while civilians, and then firefighters, attempt to extinguish the flames.
Ukraine’s media also mentioned some photos that show the burnt corpses of the Moroccan students lying on the ground near the vehicle, after firefighters extinguished the blaze.
Investigations are ongoing to determine the causes and circumstances of the accident.
At the time of writing, the Moroccan Embassy in Kiev did not issue any statement regarding the accident.