Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Relations Claudia Ruiz Massieu speaks to the media after visiting injured Mexican tourists at a Cairo hospital.
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“The incident resulted in the death of 12 Mexicans and Egyptians and the injury of 10 others who have been transferred to hospitals”, the statement reads.
Egyptian security forces frequently target smugglers in the western desert, and in July 2014, gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked a border guard post, killing 21 troops.
“I call on President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to order an exceptional pension for the family of my brother”, his brother Aboul-Ela told Xinhua, hoping the Egyptian authorities will treat his deceased brother as the Mexican victims in terms of appreciation and compensation.
Hassan Al-Nahla, head of Egypt’s tour guides union, said the tourist group had received all the required permits and set off with a police escort from Cairo to Bahariya oasis, roughly 350 km away.
Susan Calderon’s husband was among eight Mexicans killed in what has been described as an accident.
Ruiz Massieu said she shared the “indignation” over the matter with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and the Mexican people. Four Egyptians were also killed. “God wanted us to know what fear really is”, she added.
Another ten people were injured in the incident.
Egyptian security forces fired on the group of tourists and guides after mistaking them for terrorists they were chasing in the area, according to the Egyptian government.
Shaban said the Egyptian interior ministry assured Mexico that it would “conduct the necessary investigation to fully determine the causes of the incident”.
Survivors have told Mexican diplomats that they came under fire from a plane and helicopters.
Egyptian security forces regularly claim to have killed dozens of militants in air strikes, though the tolls are hard to independently verify.
The Western Desert is popular with tour groups, but is also a militant hideout, with Western embassies warning against non-essential travel there.
Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, is battling an Islamist insurgency that has intensified since mid-2013 when then-army chief Sisi ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, after mass protests against his rule.
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But in recent months, militants loyal to the Islamic State have carried out a series of attacks in more central parts of the country, including the bombing of the Italian Consulate in Cairo and the kidnapping and beheading of a Croatian oil surveyor who was working in the capital.
