At least 18 killed in northern Egypt pick-up truck crash, many of them children

At least 18 people, many of them children aged 13 to 14, were killed on Tuesday in northern Egypt when two pick-up trucks carrying agricultural day labourers collided, according to a local medical source, as reported by Africanews citing AFP.

The crash occurred in northern Egypt, where the two vehicles were transporting agricultural workers. The precise location and circumstances of the collision were not immediately disclosed in the initial reports.

Egypt has one of the highest road-traffic fatality rates in the Eastern Mediterranean region, according to the World Health Organization, with tens of thousands of people killed or injured on its roads each year. Investigators have repeatedly linked the toll to a combination of poor vehicle maintenance, weak enforcement of speed and seatbelt laws, and the widespread use of pick-up trucks and minibuses to transport workers, often in open cargo beds without proper safety restraints.

The use of agricultural day labour, frequently drawn from poor rural communities and including children, has drawn criticism from international rights groups, who have documented cases of young teenagers working in fields during school hours. Egypt’s child labour legislation sets the minimum working age at 14 for light work, but enforcement in the informal agricultural sector remains limited, particularly during seasonal harvest periods.

Road accidents involving overloaded vehicles are common across Egypt’s Nile Delta and other agricultural regions, where infrastructure has struggled to keep pace with population growth. The country’s traffic regulation agency has launched periodic awareness campaigns, but critics say such measures have done little to reduce the annual death toll.

No further details on survivors or the identities of the victims were available at the time of reporting.

Sources

This report was written from coverage published by the following news organisations. Follow the links for the original reporting.

• Africanews — At least 18 killed in Egypt truck crash, many children
• africanews.com — At least 18 killed in Egypt truck crash, many children