Forty-six people are confirmed dead after two buses collided on the highway between Kampala and Gulu in the early hours of October 22, 2025, according to a statement from the Uganda Police Force. The road is one of the country’s busiest, a corridor running from the capital to the northern city of Gulu.
The crash happened at 12:15 am in Kitaleba Village, beside Asili Farm, in Kiryandongo District. Four vehicles were caught up in it: two Isuzu buses, one run by Nile Star Coaches and the other by Planet Company, a Toyota Surf and a Tata lorry.
The sequence, as police reconstructed it, was a double overtake gone wrong. The Nile Star bus, heading from Kampala toward Gulu, pulled out to pass the Tata lorry. At the same instant, the Planet Company bus, coming the other way, was moving to pass the Toyota Surf. The two buses met in the middle of those manoeuvres.
One of the drivers swerved to avoid the impact, police said, but the correction only turned it into a head-on and side collision that sent the other vehicles rolling over several times. Everyone who died, all 46, was an occupant of one of those four vehicles; several more were hurt.
Police moved the injured to Kiryandongo Hospital and to other medical facilities nearby, and the bodies of the dead were carried to the same hospital’s mortuary for post-mortem and identification.
The record shows a pattern the force has repeatedly warned against. In its statement, police urged motorists to avoid dangerous and careless overtaking, which it called a leading cause of crashes nationwide, and offered condolences to the families of the dead.
Sources
- Uganda highway tragedy: At least 63 killed in devastating bus collision
- 46 COMFIRMED DEAD IN FATAL ROAD CRASH ALONG KAMPALA–GULU HIGHWAY AT KITALEBA VILLAGE – Uganda Police Force
