At least 18 people, most of them fishermen, were killed and three others injured after a truck collided with a passenger pick-up in Egypt’s northeastern Port Said province, according to media reports.
The crash took place around 12:30 pm local time on Thursday on the 30 June Axis highway, south of Port Said, Egypt’s state-run daily Al-Ahram reported.
Survivors were taken to hospital for treatment, while public prosecutors opened an investigation to determine the cause of the accident, the newspaper said.
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Photos shared online showed the pick-up badly crushed between two large cargo trucks, with wreckage scattered across the roadway. The Associated Press reported that the vehicle was carrying fishermen to fish farms in the coastal Port Said area.
Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, who was attending the inaugural meeting of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace in Washington, DC, offered condolences to the victims and ordered financial support for the families of those killed and injured.
In a Facebook statement, Madbouly said he was monitoring the situation through updates from the governor of Port Said province.
Road accidents remain a serious problem in Egypt, claiming thousands of lives every year. Collisions frequently involve heavy trucks and passenger vehicles, with speeding, poor road conditions and weak enforcement of traffic laws often cited as major causes.
Last June, a separate truck and minibus crash killed 19 people, most of them teenage girls, local officials said at the time.
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