Egypt minibus crash outside Cairo kills 10, injures 24

• A minibus hit a heavy truck west of Cairo on Oct 31, killing 10 and injuring 24, Egypt’s health ministry said.
• Ten injured people were in critical condition, and spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said the figures were still preliminary.
• The crash adds to Egypt’s road safety problem, with more than 75,000 injuries and over 5,000 deaths each year, according to state statistics.

GIZA, Egypt - A minibus collided with a heavy truck on a highway west of Cairo on Oct 31, killing 10 people and injuring 24 others, Egypt’s health ministry said.

The crash occurred near 6th of October City, a sprawling satellite city in Giza province on the western outskirts of the Egyptian capital, the ministry said in a statement.

Officials said 10 of the injured were in critical condition.

Health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said the casualty figures were preliminary and that officials were continuing to assess the situation.

The accident was the latest in a string of fatal road incidents in Egypt, where traffic accidents remain a persistent public safety challenge.

Such crashes are often blamed on reckless driving, poor vehicle maintenance and uneven enforcement of traffic laws.

Road accidents in Egypt injure more than 75,000 people annually and kill over 5,000, according to Egypt’s state statistics agency

Earlier this month, 13 people were killed and 34 injured when a large truck struck a tourist bus west of Cairo.

In September, a bus crash in the Sinai Peninsula killed 22 people, including 10 Jordanian tourists.

In August, at least 18 people, many of them children, died in northern Egypt when two pick-up trucks transporting agricultural day labourers collided. AFP