Nine Muslim pilgrims die in Egypt bus crash

CAIRO: Nine Egyptians on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia died and more than 40 were injured on Wednesday when their bus flipped over in the latest of a string of deadly Egyptian transport accidents, security sources said.   

In a separate crash on Wednesday, a British tourist died after the bus he was travelling in overturned near Suez, east of the Egyptian capital, the sources said.   

The Egyptian pilgrims were travelling from Cairo to the port of Safaga to catch a ferry to Saudi Arabia when their bus overturned on a road along the Red Sea coast.   

They were headed to the Muslim holy city of Mecca to make the minor Umra pilgrimage.   

A series of deadly transport accidents in recent weeks have sparked public anger at what critics call a government failure to enforce safety standards.   

Last month, 58 people were killed in the Nile Delta town of Qalyoub when two commuter trains collided in Egypt's worst rail accident in four years. A day later, 11 Israeli Arab tourists died when their bus flipped in the Sinai peninsula.   

On Monday, two people died in a head-on collision between a freight train and a largely empty third class passenger train north of Cairo.