Eleven people were killed on Saturday in a road accident on Egypt’s El-Kureimat road, according to an official statement.

 

Among the victims were a couple whose wedding ceremony was scheduled for the upcoming Sunday, the statement said.

 

Judicial sources said in the statement that the deadly crash occurred when a micro-bus collided with the car that had two people in it, on the El-Kureimat highway.

 

All the victims, including the nine from the micro-bus along with the car’s couple, died on the spot following the “terrible collision," the statement said quoting the judicial sources.

 

The bodies of the victims and the injured, without identifying their number, were taken to the nearest hospital, the statement said.

 

Though fatal road accidents take place on a near-daily basis in Egypt, which used be due to suffering from poorly maintained road infrastructure, the governmental efforts to upgrade roads have been fruitfully ongoing in the past recent years.

 

The number of road accidents in Egypt fell by around 30 percent in 2019. According to a report by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), 9,992, down from 14,403 in 2014. 

 

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi launched the National Road Project in 2014 with the goal of developing and extending Egypt’s 23,500km long road network. In 2014 when the project was launched, Egypt ranked 118 in terms of the quality of road infrastructure in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Report. While in 2019, it climbed up to 28th place on the list.

 

From 2014 to 2024, it was planned to implement 1769 projects in the road and bridges sector with a total cost of EGP464 billion, and so far 1052 projects costing EGP254.3 billion have been executed, the minister said.

 

Since 2014, of the 7,000km of new roads envisaged by the National Road Project, 4,800km have been built costing EGP120 billion, and 1,400km are currently being constructed with a cost of EGP37 billion.

 

Out of the existing 9,000km that need to be upgraded at the cost of EGP107 billion in line with the road project, 5,000km have been upgraded so far at a cost of EGP15 billion.