A fatal accident occurred this morning just outside Arzachena. It happened around 8:15 a.m. on provincial road 59: an SUV and a Fiesta collided on Viale Costa Smeralda, a straight stretch near Malchittu, a stretch known for being extremely dangerous due to the high speeds at which cars travel.
Two young people traveling in the Fiesta died . A 20-year-old and a 19-year-old, while a 16-year-old traveling with them, likely in the back seat, was airlifted to the Santissima Annunziata Hospital in Sassari in serious condition. Two Austrian women were taken to the hospital in Nuoro.
The victims are two young men of Moroccan and Egyptian origin: Sami Ait Oukfir, born in 2005 in Olbia, and Fares Shehata, born in 2006 in Egypt .
They were on their way to work, as they do every morning, at the Aquadream water park in Baja Sardinia . Their car, a Ford Fiesta, suddenly skidded, hit the curb, and then crossed into the opposite lane, where a black SUV carrying the two Austrian tourists was approaching . The impact was extremely violent, and the two young people in the Ford were the ones who suffered the worst of it.
The terrible news shocked the community of Arzachena, where the young people lived. When it reached Aquadream , the first water park opened in Sardinia over 30 years ago and a popular destination for tourists from the Costa Smeralda, the managers didn't hesitate to lower the shutters and close for mourning.
The two boys were well-known in the Gallura town. Sami Ait Oukfir was a blood donor and volunteer for Avis Olbia , whose president, Gavino Felice Murrighile, remembered him on social media, expressing his condolences to the family.
The Arzachena traffic police and local police worked throughout the day to reconstruct the accident and determine who was responsible. The road was closed to traffic by the Italian National Roads Authority (ANAS) and reopened only in the early afternoon.