Agricultural workers who are forced to travel in unsafe vehicles were victims of another accident on Tuesday, one week after an accident killed 15 agricultural workers in western Turkey. A husband and wife and one-year-old infant were killed when a pickup truck carrying agricultural workers overturned when its tires went flat in southern Turkey.
Workers were returning to their hometown of Şanlıurfa in the southeast after laboring in fields in Reyhanlı, a district of southern province of Hatay. Thirteen others, mostly children, were injured in the accident in Gaziantep, a city between Hatay and Şanlıurfa. Those injured and deceased were relatives. They were crammed in the back of the truck along with their possessions when the two back tires blew out.
Halil Alınmış and his wife Hüsniye were in the cab at the time of the accident while all of the injured were traveling in the back.
The transportation of agricultural workers has long been a point of contention in Turkey. Last week, 15 agricultural workers, mostly women, were killed when a milk tanker ran into their pickup truck in Gölmarmara, a district in the western province of Manisa. They were heading to a vineyard to pick vine leaves when the tanker, whose driver was reportedly asleep behind the wheel, crashed into the small truck.
The accident was the deadliest involving agricultural workers since October 2014. Seventeen agricultural workers were killed when their minibus crashed due to brakes failure in an accident in the western province of Isparta.
Though traffic inspections against overloaded pickup trucks, minibuses and similar vehicles carrying agricultural workers have increased, trucks with open backs are still commonly used for the transportation of laborers in the area. Workers from villages risk their lives daily en route to vineyards for up to TL 50 ($18) a day.
Following last year's deadly accident in Isparta, Parliament set up a committee to investigate the problems seasonal farm workers face. Amid the short-term solutions to help resolve the problem of transporting agricultural workers, the committee proposed in its report, which wrapped up three months ago, for their transportation to be by train. The committee also proposed a ban on transportation in the backs of trucks. Most farm workers, however, still are transported that way, often crammed in to cut costs.
Experts are calling for more frequent inspections of drivers and vehicles by security forces and the implementation of new regulations.
