CAIRO — A devastating traffic accident in southern Egypt has left nine children dead and two more injured after their motorized tricycle careened into a local canal on Tuesday, regional authorities confirmed. The incident unfolded in the Abu Tig district of Assiut, a southern Upper Egyptian province located roughly 320 kilometers south of Cairo, best known for its collection of ancient historic landmarks. The governor’s office publicly confirmed the details of the crash in an official statement shared via its Facebook page.
Preliminary local media investigations point to a steering system failure as the root cause of the crash, which occurred while the vehicle was transporting a group of children home after they finished work on nearby agricultural farms. As of the latest update, the health status of the two injured children has not been released to the public. All recovered bodies of the deceased have been transported to Abu Tig Hospital for processing and identification, per the governor’s office.
Local Egyptian news outlet Cairo 24 reports that the ages of the children killed in the accident fall between 10 and 17 years old. Images published by the governor’s office show large crowds of local residents gathered along the banks of the canal, while certified divers conducted search and recovery operations in the water.
Following the tragedy, Assiut Governor Mohamed Elwan has issued an official order mandating that regional authorities roll out new safety protocols to prevent similar future incidents. Key measures include the installation of reinforced concrete safety barriers along the full length of high-risk canal banks in the district.
This fatal incident is just the latest in a long pattern of deadly road accidents that kill thousands of Egyptians annually. The country has long struggled with a poor national transportation safety record, with systemic issues including widespread speeding, poorly maintained road infrastructure, and lax enforcement of existing traffic regulations cited as the leading contributing factors to frequent fatal crashes. Earlier in 2024, a high-speed collision between a cargo truck and a pickup truck on an Egyptian highway left 18 people dead, according to official government statements.