Eighteen people have been confirmed dead after their fishing ship collided with a container vessel in the Red Sea earlier this week, Egypt's health ministry said Thursday.

The accident occurred in the Gulf of Suez between Ras Ghareb and El-Tor on the Sinai Peninsula when the Egyptian fishing boat collided with a Jeddah-bound Kuwaiti container ship traveling from Italy, officials said.

The ministry said 13 of the bodies of the fishermen have been handed to their families while five remain with authorities.

Eighteen others injured in the collision have completed treatment at a local hospital, the ministry added

Officials had said the boat had 40 Egyptian fishermen aboard, leaving at least four missing.

But the head of El-Tor Port, Gamal El-Sherif, said in comments Thursday to Aswat Masriya that three more bodies had been pulled out of the water, adding to 17 earlier announced by officials.

The captain and first officer of the Kuwaiti ship have been detained for four days, a public prosecutor said Tuesday.

In February 2006, around 1,000 people, mostly Egyptians, were killed when a ferry caught fire and sank in the Red Sea, in one of the country's worst sea disasters.