Seventeen people climbed into a van in the dark for a day of prayer at a shrine in Kenya’s Rift Valley, and not one of them survived the drive.
A truck driver’s failed attempt to overtake on a climbing lane set off a multi-vehicle collision on the highway to the coastal city of Mombasa that killed 17 people at Salama, in Makueni County, shortly after midnight on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, Makueni County Commissioner Khalif Abdullahi told The Standard.
The van’s driver and 16 passengers, predominantly women, were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said. Most of the dead were Catholic pilgrims from St. Mathias Mulumba Catholic Church, traveling through the early hours of the morning to Subukia National Shrine for the National Prayer Day, an annual gathering that draws Catholics from across the country.
The Overtake That Never Finished
Abdullahi laid out the sequence for The Standard. “The truck was travelling from Nairobi to Mombasa and on arriving at the scene of the accident, the vehicle overtook a number of vehicles using the climbing lane,” he said.
“The driver’s desperate attempt to return to his lane was futile as he hit another truck with more than five other vehicles hence ramming into each other,” Abdullahi added.
Police said the chain of events began when a truck driver tried to pass another truck and never completed the maneuver. The van carrying the Catholic pilgrims was caught up in the resulting collision. No official cause has been announced.
Six survivors were discharged from Sultan Hamud sub-county hospital on the morning of Oct. 3. The truck driver, who suffered serious head injuries, was transferred to Makueni County Referral Hospital.
Martin Kivuva, archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa, confirmed the deaths in a statement released Saturday, Oct. 3. “We are saddened with lots of grief to announce the untimely passing on of seventeen (17) pilgrims,” he said, and he asked for prayers for the dead, their families, St. Mathias Mulumba parish and the archdiocese so that all might find comfort in the Lord.
Four Friends and a Choir Leader
Margaret Muregi, a parishioner, said she lost four friends in the crash, among them the choir leader, Scholastica Ochieng. The pilgrims left in two shuttles, Muregi said, and only one of them was caught in the wreck.
Father Augustine Lape, the parish priest, defended the man at the wheel of the van. “We do not believe that our driver was speeding. They were modest on the road. All the occupants who perished were adults,” he said.
A Black Spot Already Flagged
The Kenya National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) sent a multidisciplinary crash investigation team to Salama to establish the full circumstances of the collision, inspect the vehicles involved and check compliance, working in support of the National Police Service.
The authority said it had flagged the stretch of road between Mlima Kiu and Salama as a black spot for traffic collisions, and that it had already made safety recommendations for the corridor before the Oct. 3 crash. It has not said what became of those recommendations.
NTSA urged motorists to use extreme caution while the investigation continues, to avoid dangerous overtaking maneuvers and to keep strict lane discipline. Kenya recorded 5,009 road traffic deaths last year and 2,150 in the first six months of 2026, according to NTSA figures cited by Al Jazeera. The investigation is continuing.
A Requiem for 17
All 17 victims have been identified since the crash, and postmortem examinations were carried out at Sultan Hamud Hospital. The archdiocese held a joint requiem Mass for the victims at St. Mathias Mulumba parish in Mikindani on Thursday, Oct. 8.
Kenyan President William Ruto offered his sympathies to the families, friends and fellow parishioners of the dead, and to the wider Catholic community. “I am deeply saddened by the tragic loss of 17 pilgrims,” Ruto said, according to The Standard.