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Six Christian Orthodox priests and a church worker died in highway accident in Ukraine, Channel 5 television reported Tuesday. The accident took place on a highway in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv province late Monday, after a Mercedes microbus transporting the church staff struck a DAF tractor-trailer travelling in the opposite direction.

The seven passengers of the microbus all died in the impact, but the driver survived with severe injuries, and was being treated in a local hospital, according to a Mediaport news service report.

All had been members of a congregation in the western Ukrainian city of Chernovtsi. They had been on a pilgrimage to a monastery near the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, according to an Interfax news agency report.

The driver of the DAF lorry suffered light injuries, according to the Channel 5 report.

The accident came less than a week after a crash in Ukraine's Zaporizhia province left five people dead, also from a head-on collision between vehicles travelling on a rural highway.

Ukraine's road system is among the world's most dangerous, with more than 9,000 persons killed in road accidents every year, according Interior Ministry data.

Cold weather and poor road maintenance make winter automobile travel in Ukraine particularly risky.

source Earth Times