Nine people were killed and another eight injured in a bus crash on the road between Minya capital and the northern city of Cairo, a police official said Sunday. "A bus flipped over on the Minya-Cairo Desert Road, resulting in nine people dead, including a seven-year-old schoolboy, and eight injured," Major-General Mohssen Murad said. "The accident took place on the desert highway, which runs parallel to the Nile Valley," he added. Police, firemen and ambulances rushed to the scene and the injured were rushed to the nearby Minya General Hospital, the police official said. Egypt's roads are among the most chaotic and dangerous in the world, due to mainly reckless driving. Egypt has its share of bad roads, high speeds low traffic enforcement. Official statistics estimate that 8000 people are killed and 32,000 hurt on Egyptian road accidents each year. Critics believe the offical figure understates the problem, according to one study the accident rate in Egypt is about 34 times higher than in the European countries and roughly three times higher than countries in the Middle East. A report by Egyptian National Democratic Party unveils that the levels of road accidents in Egypt are higher than global rates and that they have caused up to LE 2 billion of losses for the Egyptian economy in 2007 1.5% of GDP The report affirms that these accidents have now started to affect Egyptian families living standards due to the loss of one of their members. According to the report, which has been prepared by the Egyptian National Democratic Party Transport Committee, 90% of accidents occur on local roads while the remaining 10% on highways, which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport and stretch for a total of 23,000 km out of a total 46,000 km of roads approximately.
