At least 10 female agricultural workers, nine of them children, were killed when a minibus plunged into the Nile from a river ferry northwest of Cairo on Tuesday, according to the Egyptian Health Ministry. (Photo: Ahmed Gamal/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
aEgypt's health ministry said at least 10 female agricultural workers, nine of them children, were killed on Tuesday when a minibus fell from a river ferry on the Nile northwest of Cairo.
“The death toll stands at 10 and could rise,” ministry spokesman Hossam Abdelghaffer said.
The state's Al-Ahram newspaper reported the accident, saying the driver, who had released the handbrake, was arrested while fleeing the scene.
The paper said he had been in an “altercation” with a passenger before getting off the bus.
According to the list published by Al-Ahram, two of the victims were 13 years old and all worked in “export orchards”. All but one, a 40-year-old woman, were under 16.
The vehicle sank in the village of Abu Gharib, about 50 km northwest of the capital.
Villagers paddled out in small wooden boats to help search and rescue teams look for survivors while relatives waited anxiously on the narrow banks of the Nile.
Rescue workers and locals swam to free victims from the submerged vehicle's windows before a crane could finally pull the minibus out of the water.
The health ministry said in a statement that nine injured passengers – most of whom were minors, according to an Al-Ahram list – had been taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Al-Ahram newspaper said operations to find more of the five missing passengers were “ongoing” into the evening.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity said it would pay financial compensation “to the families of those killed and injured.”
After carrying out an initial investigation at the scene, the public prosecutor ordered a technical examination to determine “why the minibus fell into the water,” Al-Ahram news agency said.
Commuter accidents are common in Egypt, particularly in agricultural areas along the Nile and adjacent streams, where small, overloaded boats transport farmers and workers to and from work.
Official figures suggest that at least 1.3 million children are engaged in some form of child labour in the Arab world's most populous country, most of whom work unpaid on family farms, according to the International Labour Organisation.
But children are also frequently sent to work on large export farms, according to Sakar Al Noor, a rural sociologist who has studied agricultural working conditions extensively.
“These accidents keep happening because the girls work in poor conditions, packed, in their words, like sardines into minibuses,” Al Noor said. AFP