A powerful explosion at a military base near Cairo has killed several Egyptian soldiers, while another fatal accident elsewhere claimed the lives of five schoolchildren in Upper Egypt.
The armed forces have remained tight-lipped over the Monday explosion inside a weapons and ammunition workshop at the Huckstep military base, east of Cairo.
On Tuesday, residents of the Nile Delta and Upper Egypt provinces buried the bodies of five officers and conscripts, though the army has not officially linked them to the incident.
According to local reports, the victims included Lt. Col. Mohamed Salah al-Suweifi, Captain Ahmed Mohamed Imam, and conscripts Ahmed Sabri Hashem, Mohamed Ahmed Sabri, and Abdallah Mohamed Ali Behnsawi, all of whom were serving at Huckstep.
Their families and relatives posted photos and condolences on social media without mentioning how they died.
Army spokesperson Brigadier General Gharib Abdel Hafiz said in a brief statement that "the explosion occurred during the dismantling of old explosive devices by a specialised technical team, leading to multiple successive blasts that were felt by residents of al-Haykstep and surrounding areas".
He added that "a technical committee within the armed forces has opened an investigation to determine the causes of the explosion".
The Huckstep military zone, which covers roughly 46 square kilometres, houses several army installations, including a recruitment centre for Cairo and Qalyubiya provinces, training camps, weapons and ammunition workshops, a military prison, and residential housing for officers.
The explosion shattered windows in nearby neighbourhoods such as Obour, Shorouk, and Badr, and caused a lecture hall roof to collapse at Future Academy on the Cairo–Ismailia Desert Road, according to footage shared online.
Residents of nearby army housing reportedly received messages urging them not to post photos or videos of the incident on social media.
This is not the first time the Egyptian army has been accused of concealing details about deadly incidents. It did not release names of those killed in a May 2024 training aircraft crash, nor disclose the real number of casualties from a fire at the Ismailia security directorate in October 2023 that killed 12 conscripts, according to local media.
Children killed in bus crash
Elsewhere in Egypt, grief turned to devastation in the villages of Salam and Manqabad in Asyut Governorate, some 400 kilometres south of Cairo, after a motorised tricycle carrying schoolchildren overturned into an irrigation canal, killing five pupils and injuring seven others.
Witnesses said the children were on their way to school when the driver lost control of the vehicle, which toppled into the muddy canal. Rescue teams recovered the bodies after hours of searching. On Tuesday, hundreds of residents attended funerals for the victims, described by local media as "tiny coffins covered in white flowers".
One resident told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, "We still can’t believe they’re gone… they were on their way to learn, and now they’ve returned to God."
The victims were identified as Samar Mohamed, who died instantly, and Basmala Ahmed, Jana Ibrahim, Malika Hussein, and Oday Mohamed, who later succumbed to their injuries in hospital.
Assiut’s district prosecutor Counsellor Mostafa Rasmy ordered the burial of the victims and the detention of the driver, who was transferred to hospital for drug testing.
Initial investigations by Lt. Col. Omar Abdel Azim found that the driver, who had offered the children a free ride, lost control of the tricycle on a narrow, poorly maintained road running beside the canal.