At least 18 people, many of them children aged 13 to 14, were killed yesterday in northern Egypt when two pick-up trucks carrying agricultural day labourers crashed, a local medical source said.
Egypt’s health ministry had earlier said there were 47 casualties, including around 30 injured, in the crash in the Dawawis area of Ismailia governorate.
Dangerously overcrowded pick-ups are a regular mode of transport for millions of Egyptian informal workers, despite the danger they pose, including to child laborers.
Families gathered outside the Al Qasasin Hospital in Ismailia yesterday.
Jomana Waleed, a 16-year-old survivor of the crash, said her sister’s last words were “I want to see mama.”
Waleed was released from hospital with a slight injury to her back, while her brother was sent to another hospital..
A medical source said that “most of the dead are children 13 and 14 years old,” but could not immediately provide exact figures.
Local media Al Masry Al-Youm reported the youngest victims were two 10-year-old girls.
At least 1.3 million minors are engaged in some form of child labor in Egypt, according to official figures, and children are regularly the victims of commuter accidents.
The workers, mostly from two villages in the Nile delta governorate of Sharqiya, were employed on an Ismailia farm.
Local media reported that President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi had directed authorities to immediately investigate the cause of the crash.
Informal labour accounts for nearly 67 per cent of employment in Egypt and almost the entire agricultural sector, according to the International Labor Organisation.
Between eight and 13, million people are estimated to work as ‘irregular’ day laborers – mostly in agriculture, construction and manufacturing – and lack robust wage and safety protections.
Road accidents are common in Egypt, where traffic rules are unevenly enforced and many roads are in poor repair.
Accidents often involve underage laborers traveling to work in rural areas.
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