Egypt train crash: Transport minister urged to resign after seven killed and 114 injured

Calls for Egypt's Transport Minister Kamel El Wazir to resign were growing on Monday, as parties in the pro-government coalition, as well as a leading pro-state television host, echoed demands that he take responsibility for a train crash south of Cairo that killed seven people.

A train travelling from Giza to Fayoum, on Sunday afternoon, smashed into the rear of another heading from Cairo to Aswan, which had stopped on the tracks near El Ayyat. Seven people including the driver died, and 114 were injured as several carriages derailed, the Health Ministry said.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi ordered an urgent investigation to hold accountable “anyone found to have been negligent”, and prosecutors formed a technical committee to establish the cause.

Traffic on the line was running normally again by Monday morning, the National Railway Authority said .

The crash cast a pall over a country wearily familiar with such tragedies. Reports said three of the dead were from one family.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Kuwait and the Arab League were among countries that sent condolences.

The incident has drawn criticism from prominent legislators and across social media, with many Egyptians asking for accountability, especially since such incidents are not uncommon.

Some of the sharpest rebukes came from within the government's own ranks.

Al Adl Party, which won seats on the pro-government National List, filed three urgent motions asking for the Minister to be summoned before parliament.

Hussein Haridy, an MP representing Al Adl, took matters further in a Sunday evening interview with pro-government talk show host Amr Adib.

“I hope he resigns and takes political responsibility,” Mr Haridy said. “People's blood isn't cheap.”

Basel Adel, a senator and head of the Al Waie Party, said that the time had come "for the transport minister to resign and leave”.

They spoke after calls by the opposition Egyptian Social Democratic Party, whose MP Freddy El Bayady demanded Mr El Wazir's dismissal and an independent inquiry, while his colleague Reham Abdel Nabi filed a formal interpellation.

Journalist Adib, considered close to the state, was more blunt on his talk show.

“How many have to die for the Minister to go?” he asked in a clip that has since been widely reshared.

However, the largest parties in parliament were more measured. Homat El Watan called for accountability “in light of the President's directives” without naming the Minister, and the National Front pledged 100,000 Egyptian pounds (about $1,850) to each bereaved family.

Mr El Wazir visited the site but had not spoken publicly by Sunday night.

Egypt train crash - in pictures

The crash has also revived a long-running dispute over how much Egypt has borrowed to finance an ambitious transport programme.

In the past decade, large-scale projects have included two monorail lines linking Greater Cairo to new satellite cities, a nationwide high-speed rail network, an electric light rail link to the New Administrative Capital and extensions to Cairo’s metro.

In June, several MPs objected to a $3.9 billion loan for the high-speed railway.

Ahmed Farghali, an independent MP for Port Said who sits on the House economic committee, said the ministry accounted for 52 per cent of state borrowing.

However, the parliament pushed the funding through later that month.

On Sunday, Irene Said, who heads the Reform and Development Party's parliamentary bloc, asked how much of this year's loans had gone towards signalling and safety.

Meanwhile Ms Abdel Nabi, in her interpellation request, put railway investment since 2014 at about 300 billion Egyptian pounds ($5.54 billion).

Mr El Wazir replied that his ministry's loans of about $14 billion were a small share of national debt.

A former head of the army's Engineering Authority, Mr El Wazir was appointed in 2019 after his predecessor, Hisham Arafat, resigned over a fire at Cairo's Ramses station that killed 25 people.

Now also Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development, he has weathered similar storms before.

After a collision in Sohag in March 2021, which killed at least 20 people and injured 199, he said he was “not used to escaping” crises. When a road accident in Menoufia last year killed 19 young farm workers, he was more emphatic.

Legislators accused his ministry of failing to ensure motorists’ safety during roadworks he had overseen on the regional ring road.

“I won't resign,” he said. “I'm in it until I die.”

Sunday's collision came less than a week after a derailment near Aswan, and just over a year after a derailment in Matrouh killed three people and injured more than 100.