Egypt minibus crash kills 9, says health ministry

Nine people were killed and 11 injured in northern Egypt on Saturday when two minibuses collided on a busy highway in the Nile Delta, the health ministry said.

The crash near the village of Bani Salama, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Cairo, was the second deadly accident on the same highway in just over a week.

On 27 June, 19 people were killed, most of them teenage girls working as day labourers, when a lorry collided with their minibus.

Later on Saturday, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered authorities to ramp up road safety efforts, including studying the closure of highway sections under maintenance and providing safe detours, his office said in a statement.

He also called for "promptly taking legal action against violators" and urged stricter enforcement to curb speeding and vehicle overloading.

Egypt's roads claim thousands of lives each year, with crashes often blamed on reckless driving, poor maintenance and weak law enforcement.

Accidents are especially frequent in rural areas, where unregulated transport -- often in the form of overcrowded minibuses -- is used to shuttle workers to fields and factories.