38 killed in Swaziland crash, says group

JOHANNESBURG — At least 38 girls and young women were killed in a crash while traveling to Swaziland’s most famous traditional festival, a rights group said on Saturday.

An additional 20 others were injured when the truck they were in collided with another vehicle on Friday, the Swaziland Solidarity Network said in a statement. Members of the Swaziland Defense Force alerted the rights group to the accident and gave the number of deaths, said Lucky Lukhele, the solidarity network’s spokesman.

The young women and girls were traveling on the back of an open truck, the rights group said.

Swazi police at first refused to give any information on the accident but later disputed the death toll provided by the rights group. Only 13 people were killed in the crash, said police spokesman Khulani Mamba.

Cellphone images taken of the crash show the bloodied bodies of young women lying on the back of a flatbed truck.

The girls and young women were on their way to the Swazi king’s royal residence for the annual reed dance.

About 40,000 young women participate in the eight-day reed dance ceremony in which they sing and dance, usually bare-breasted, as they bring reeds to reinforce the windbreak around the royal residence. During the reed dance, the king often selects one of the young women to become one of his wives. Swaziland is polygamous, and the king has more than a dozen wives.