At least 17 die in road accident in southern Egypt

Accident comes two weeks after 23 people died in another crash south of Cairo

Rescuers work at the site of a bus crash in South Sinai, Egypt, 08 January 2022. EPA

At least 17 people were killed late on Tuesday when a minibus collided with a truck on a desert highway in southern Egypt, police officials said.

They said four people were injured in the accident at Sohag province and taken to hospital.

Fifteen ambulances rushed to the scene of the accident to take the injured to the main Sohag hospital and the bodies of the deceased to the local morgue, police said.

Road accidents kill thousands every year in Egypt, a country that is home to 103 million people and has a poor transport safety record, chiefly because of speeding, bad roads and poor enforcement of traffic laws.

Two weeks ago, at least 23 people were killed when a passenger bus collided with a truck on a desert road in Egypt's Minya province south of Cairo.

That collision, near the city of Malawy, about 200 kilometres south of the Egyptian capital, injured 30.