The boxers were en route to an All-African Games qualifying tournament in lome, Togo, when the accident occured on saturday, The Champion newspaper reported.

The coach carrying the team apparently swerved to avoid an unlit stationary vehicle on the road outside benin city, southwest Nigeria, and collided with an oncoming vehicle, the paper said.

Sixteen people in the oncoming vehicle and two in the stationary vehicle died at the scene.

Two boxing officials were injured, the paper added. Nigerian Amateur Boxing Association chairman David Johnson told the paper the boxers had since been driven on to Togo.