Trains collide in Egypt’s Nile Delta leaving 3 dead, 29 injured
Trains collide in Egypt’s Nile Delta leaving 3 dead, 29 injured/node/2571404/middle-east
Trains collide in Egypt’s Nile Delta leaving 3 dead, 29 injured
People surround two passenger trains which collided in Egypt's Nile Delta city of Zagazig, the provincial capital of Sharqiya province, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP)
Trains collide in Egypt’s Nile Delta leaving 3 dead, 29 injured
The crash happened in the city of Zagazig, the capital of Sharqiya province, the country’s railway authority said in a statement
Updated 15 September 2024
AP
CAIRO: Two passenger trains collided in Egypt’s Nile Delta on Saturday, killing at least three people, two of them children, authorities said.
The crash happened in the city of Zagazig, the capital of Sharqiya province, the country’s railway authority said in a statement. Egypt’s Health Ministry said the collision injured at least 40 others.
Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where an aging railway system has also been plagued by mismanagement. In recent years, the government announced initiatives to improve its railways.
In 2018, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said some 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $8.13 billion, would be needed to properly overhaul the North African country’s neglected rail network.
Video from the site of the crash showed a train car crumpled by the impact, surrounded by crowds. Men tried to lift the injured through the windows of a passenger car.
Last month, a train crashed into a truck crossing the train tracks in the Mediterranean province of Alexandria, killing two people.
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country. Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.” If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison. Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year. A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah. He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government. Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges. “They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement. The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month. In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country. His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs. Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer. This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
