For the Second Day in a Row, a Co-Driver Is Killed in Dakar Auto Rally

For the second time in two days, a driver in the Paris-to-Dakar auto rally was killed.

French co-driver Patrick Canado, 37, was killed Sunday, shortly after the start of the 11th leg from Arlit to Agades in Niger.

Race officials said Canado was thrown from his Range Rover car during a collision with an Italian car about 14 miles out of Arlit. The driver of Canado’s car, Rene Boudet, 41, of France, suffered a hip injury.

Canado’s death was the 20th in the 10-year history of the Paris-Dakar rally, and it followed by 24 hours an accident that killed Rees Van Loevezijn of the Netherlands, co-driver of a truck.

Earlier Sunday, a mechanic, Girard Lason of France, was seriously injured when he was run over by a car while sleeping on the ground.

The organizers also announced another serious injury from Saturday’s 10th leg. They said Frenchman Jean-Marie Lignieres remained all night in the desert with a medical team that considered his condition too serious to move him after he suffered a back injury.

The rally is a 7,500-mile trek across the African desert. Fewer than half of the 600 autos, motorcycles and trucks that began the rally Jan. 1 on the outskirts of Paris remain in the race.