CAIRO (AP) – At least six people have been killed when a pickup truck and a minibus collided near Egypt’s eastern city of Ismailia, health officials said. Three others were injured in the crash.
Among the dead were five Palestinians, between 20 and 50 years of age, and one Egyptian, the local ambulance service said in a statement.
According to Egyptian media, the five Palestinian passengers were heading to Rafah, Egypt’s official border crossing with the Gaza Strip.
Eight ambulances were dispatched to the scene of the accident to transfer injured people to nearby hospitals for treatment, the ambulance service said. No further details were given.
In a separate statement, the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo said it would help facilitate the transfer of the bodies of the five Palestinian victims back to the Gaza Strip for burial.
Fatal car accidents are common across the North African country, killing thousands every year. Last November, 21 people died after a bus fell into a canal in Egypt’s Nile River Delta region. In July 2022, a passenger bus slammed into a parked trailer in the south of the country, killing 23 people.
Car crashes and road collisions in Egypt are largely caused by speeding, poor roads or lax enforcement of traffic laws.