An 11-year-old boy crashed his parents' pickup truck into a group of Buddhist monks on a pilgrimage walk in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, police said. The incident occurred in Mukdahan province, about 600 kilometers northeast of Bangkok.

Mukdahan Governor Waorrayan Boonarat reported that five people were killed at the scene and three more died in hospital, while 14 others were injured and hospitalized. All victims are believed to be monks.

Local police have taken the boy into custody, and the cause of the crash is under investigation. Witnesses, including monks, reported seeing the vehicle lose balance before sliding off the road and hitting the group.

At the time, 35 monks and five lay followers were walking along the roadside on a pilgrimage in Mukdahan, a rural province in the Isan region, Thailand's poorest area bordering Laos.

Mukdahan, home to about 350,000 people, is one of Thailand's smallest and least populated provinces. Despite improvements in recent years, Thailand's roads remain among the world's most dangerous.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Thailand ranks ninth out of 175 countries for road traffic deaths. In 2021, the WHO recorded over 18,200 fatalities, roughly 50 per day.

Thai government figures for 2024 show nearly 20 deaths per 100,000 people from road incidents, a significant improvement but still more than six times Germany's rate of just over three per 100,000.

In May, a collision at a railway crossing in Bangkok killed at least eight people.

Source: www.dw.com