Egyptian search teams have retrieved 13 more bodies from this week’s boat collision on the Nile River, bringing the death toll from the tragedy to 31, the health ministry said Friday.
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The collision late Wednesday night happened when a passenger boat traveling down the Nile near Cairo collided with a scow, causing the boat to capsize.
Initially, 15 bodies were recovered and four were rescued.
Health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar said the search for the victims continued into Thursday as families of missing passengers were still looking for their loved ones.
Egyptian women mourn for victims of a passenger boat after it sunk…
On Wednesday a ferryboat capsized when “a barge collided” with it in Giza, “shattering” the former, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The skipper of the cargo ship has been arrested and detained pending a probe into the incident.
Locals angered by the deaths and families of those still missing blocked off a main road in the area where the boat sank and chanted anti-government slogans.
The Egyptian cabinet decided on Sunday to ban navigation in the Nile along Greater Cairo from sunset to sunrise, a limit that will remain in place until the end of September.
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The country’s deadliest boat accident occurred in February 2006 when a ferry sank in the Red Sea, killing more than 1,000 people.
