Karatu survivors fingerprinted for passports

MARC NKWAME in Arusha

IMMIGRATION officers yesterday took the fingerprints of three survivors of last weekend school bus crash in Karatu, for passport processing, ready for their airlifting to the United States.

Singida North Member of Parliament (MP), Lazaro Nyalandu, a former Natural Resources and Tourism Minister, who is coordinating the process, said here yesterday that the Lucky Vincent Pupils will be accompanied by their parents.

“We have just realised that the children cannot travel in ordinary planes, we therefore need to look for air ambulances and we are negotiating with the US army which has a base in Kenya if they can airlift the victims from Nairobi to America,” said Mr Nyalandu.

The parents left Arusha yesterday evening for Dar es Salaam to secure emergency passports and US visas to take their badly injured children to the US.

The three pupils who remain in comatose are 13-year old Doreen Mshana from Olasiti area, 11-year old Sadia Ismail Awadh and 11-year old Wilson Geoffrey Tarimo, both residents of Kwa- Mrombo.

Mercy Hospital System in the US has agreed to cover the costs of treatments for all the three children, currently admitted to the Mount Meru Referral Hospital here.

Meanwhile, Lucky Vincent Nursery and Primary School management has affirmed that academic activities at the institution will resume next Monday at Olasiti area after a seven-day suspension.

The school had postponed operations following the dreadful road accident that killed 32 pupils, two teachers and a driver when their school bus plunged into a gorge in Rhotia section of Karatu District, along the main Makuyuni-Ngorongoro Gate highway last Saturday.

The School’s Headmaster, Mr Ephraim Jackson, said the English Medium School at Olasiti area in Arusha City will resume operations next week, despite the big blow of losing 32 pupils who were to sit for the 2017 Primary School’s National Examinations next September.

“We still have 74 Standard Seven candidates who expect to write their national examinations in September ... we hope that even the injured three pupils who will soon be airlifted to the US for surgeries will be back by then,” said the headteacher.

“It means our school will field just 71 students for the national mock examinations scheduled for the end of this month,” said the headteacher.

Had it not been the tragedy, the school would have enlisted 106 candidates for the 2017 National Primary School Examinations.