A PHOTO of three body bags lined up side by side on a road was enough for Human Resources Minister Richard Riot Jaem to cancel his “usual” Christmas celebrations this year.

“I couldn’t get it off my mind,” he said of the photo, after he was informed, and shown multiple photos, of an accident that took place on Saturday, just two days before Christmas.

His anguish is deepened by the fact that one of the victims of the crash was someone he personally knew: Henry Gek, the 51-year-old driver of the van that collided head on with a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

The father of four and two of his passengers were killed on the spot, while five others were injured – one seriously – in the early-morning crash in Tebedu, a border district some 110km from Kuching and close to the Sarawak-Kalimantan border.

All the victims hailed from Riot’s constituency of Serian.

“The sight of the body bags lined up by the roadside is heartbreaking,” Riot told reporters who accompanied him to Gek’s home in Kg Temong Bengan, several kilometres from Riot’s Kg Pichin home, on Saturday afternoon.

Riot was there to pay his last respects and convey his condolences to Gek’s family.

With his open house cancelled out of respect for Gek, the celebrations in Riot’s village were muted, with families gathering for a quiet reunion on Christmas eve.

The two others who died have been identified by police as 49-year-old Susin Tatak and 20-year-old Olovia Natasa Dismas. – December 27, 2017.