Papua New Guinea’s deputy prime minister, Sam Basil, died late Wednesday after being injured in a car crash, police said.
The collision happened on a road leading north from Bulolo, a town in a forested, former gold-dredging area that Basil represented in parliament, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of the capital Port Moresby, police said.
“It is with great sadness that I wish to regrettably inform the Prime Minister and the country of the death of our Deputy Prime Minister following severe injuries he sustained in a vehicle accident,” police commissioner David Manning said in a statement.
“Police have commenced its investigations into the accident and have ascertained that a second vehicle was involved in the incident and the driver of this vehicle is known,” he said.
Manning said police also took three other injured people from the car for medical treatment in Bulolo.
Basil, who was transport and infrastructure minister in addition to being deputy to Prime Minister James Marape, was pronounced dead after “hours” of attempts to revive him, the police chief said.
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