Egypt: Minibus crashes into parked lorry killing 15

A minibus has crashed into the side of a parked lorry on a desert road in Egypt, killing at least 15 people.

Two women are said to have been injured and taken to hospital.

WHO has described the traffic in Egypt as “chaotic”. The roads are badly maintained, and traffic regulations are routinely not adhered to.

In June last year a traffic accident in Cairo killed seven people and injured five.

Two months before that, five Egyptians, four French and one Belgian were killed when a bus of tourists collided with a car and caught fire on the Abu Simbel-Aswan Road, a popular road used to transport tourists in the south of Egypt.

At around the same time, one Egyptian was killed when a car and a tourist bus collided in Luxor, however 38 Polish tourists survived.

READ: UK tourists die in diving boat fire in Egypt’s Red Sea

In April, following the crashes, member of the parliamentary Transport and Communications Committee, Gamal Al-Saeed, said that “tragic accidents have negative impacts on the flow of tourism in Egypt, and this is detrimental to the national economy.”

Egypt’s tourist sector contributes towards ten per cent of the country’s GDP and employs some two million people.

The industry has taken a hit in recent weeks after a Russian holidaymaker was killed by a shark and three Brits died in a fire on diving a boat, both in the Red Sea, a popular Egyptian holiday destination.

The tourism industry in the country is already suffering from the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and human rights reports about the increasingly autocratic government.

Egypt is in the middle of a severe economic crisis marked by soaring inflation, lack of foreign currency and the fall of the Egyptian pound.

Ordinary citizens have complained that they are no longer able to afford basic staples.