Iran road crash kills smuggled Afghanis

A car packed with Afghanis smuggled into Iran collided with another vehicle and burst into flames on Sunday, killing nine Afghans and five Iranians, media reported.

The official IRNA news agency said the crash occurred shortly after midnight in the southeastern province of Sistan Baluchistan, on a route Afghanis use to illegally cross the border in the hope of finding work in the Islamic republic.

"The Peugeot 405 was carrying 11 Afghans who had entered the country illegally," traffic official Colonel Farzad Malek Mohammadi said, quoted by IRNA, blaming the drivers for excessive speed and drifting from the road.

"Nine of them died on the spot due to the fire, while the remaining two have been taken to hospital for treatment to serious burns," he said.

Three people in the other car, as well as the drivers of both vehicles, were also killed, he added.

A similar accident in April saw a pickup truck smuggling fuel crashing into a car carrying 15 Afghans in southeastern Iran, killing all on board as well as three Iranians.

Nearly a million Afghans live in Iran illegally, according to official figures released in 2012.

Iran is one of the world's deadliest countries for road accidents. Some 20,000 people are killed each year in a nation with a little over 17 million vehicles for its 75-million-strong population.

Despite the high number of crashes, the authorities say deadly accidents have decreased in recent years as police take a more rigid line on the rules of the road.