Chief of Iran Social Security Organization dies in car crash

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s state TV is reporting that the managing director of the country’s social security agency and his deputy have been killed in a car crash in northern Iran.

The Thursday report said Taghi Nourbakhsh and his deputy, Abdolrahman Tajeddin, were injured in a car crash in northern Golestan Province and both died later in a hospital.

The Social Security Organization is a non-governmental organization that provides retirement, disability and unemployment insurance for wage-earners and salaried workers as well as self-employed persons who voluntarily pay in to the organization. The organization takes care of millions of people in Iran.

With some 17,000 casualties in road accidents in Iran each year, the country has one of the world’s worst traffic safety records.