CAIRO: At least 18 people were killed when a bus packed with high school students collided with three other vehicles, including a tanker truck, in northern Egypt on Wednesday, medics said.
The crash, near the Nile Delta city of Damanhur, 160 km north of Cairo, also injured 18 people, some of them seriously, police and hospital officials said.
Medics were not immediately able to say how many of the dead were children because the bodies were so badly burned after the vehicles burst into flames.
The fire completely gutted the bus which had been transporting the teenagers to school. Scorched text books were scattered near the wreckage, shown in footage aired by Egyptian television.
Medics said three charred bodies, including that of a police officer, were pulled out of a sedan which was also involved in the crash. Provincial governor Mustafa Hadhud told Egyptian television that the bus had skidded after torrential rains struck the region.
One of the pupils who survived the crash said that the bus had arrived late and that the driver had explained “there had been a problem” with the vehicle.
“I was sitting in the back of the bus when the accident happened, and I jumped out of a window,” the child told the private Egyptian CBC Extra in a telephone call from hospital.
On Sunday, 11 female university students were killed in a collision in the south of Egypt.
Road accidents are responsible for an average of nearly 12,000 deaths a year in Egypt, according to the World Health Organization.
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18 dead as Egypt school bus collides with tanker
18 dead as Egypt school bus collides with tanker
Aid trucks resume crossing Egypt-Gaza border after closure
- More than 100 aid trucks crossed the Egyptian side of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing on Tuesday, two sources told AFP
RAFAH: More than 100 aid trucks crossed the Egyptian side of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing on Tuesday, two sources told AFP.
Israel closed all crossings into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, after it launched a joint attack on Iran with the United States.
It agreed to reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing, where trucks from Egypt are inspected, for the “gradual entry of humanitarian aid.”
“More than 100 United Nations aid trucks, including UNICEF’s, entered the Rafah border crossing” on Tuesday, a source at the border told AFP on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
An official with the Egyptian Red Crescent, which coordinates aid deliveries, said the trucks “went through Rafah to the Kerem Shalom crossing,” where Israeli authorities did not send any back to Egypt — their procedure when aid shipments are rejected.
Both sources said no Palestinians were allowed through the crossing on Tuesday.
The Rafah crossing, the only gateway for Gazans to the outside world that does not pass through Israel, had reopened for a trickle of people on February 2, nearly two years after Israeli forces seized it.
A statement from the Red Crescent on Tuesday said the convoy included hundreds of tons of food, relief supplies and “fuel products to operate hospitals and vital facilities.”
The UN had warned its partners were “forced to ration fuel, prioritize life-saving operations” in the devastated Palestinian territory.
The Red Crescent official said another aid convoy was sent on Wednesday and was waiting to be allowed in.
The October peace deal between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas stipulates that 600 aid trucks should be allowed in per day.
Israel closed all crossings into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, after it launched a joint attack on Iran with the United States.
It agreed to reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing, where trucks from Egypt are inspected, for the “gradual entry of humanitarian aid.”
“More than 100 United Nations aid trucks, including UNICEF’s, entered the Rafah border crossing” on Tuesday, a source at the border told AFP on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
An official with the Egyptian Red Crescent, which coordinates aid deliveries, said the trucks “went through Rafah to the Kerem Shalom crossing,” where Israeli authorities did not send any back to Egypt — their procedure when aid shipments are rejected.
Both sources said no Palestinians were allowed through the crossing on Tuesday.
The Rafah crossing, the only gateway for Gazans to the outside world that does not pass through Israel, had reopened for a trickle of people on February 2, nearly two years after Israeli forces seized it.
A statement from the Red Crescent on Tuesday said the convoy included hundreds of tons of food, relief supplies and “fuel products to operate hospitals and vital facilities.”
The UN had warned its partners were “forced to ration fuel, prioritize life-saving operations” in the devastated Palestinian territory.
The Red Crescent official said another aid convoy was sent on Wednesday and was waiting to be allowed in.
The October peace deal between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas stipulates that 600 aid trucks should be allowed in per day.
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