Six more Mexicans reportedly remain at a Cairo hospital.
Advertisement
The minister arrived in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials over the killing of eight Mexican tourists by Egyptian forces three days ago.
Egyptian authorities have not said what weapons were involved in Sunday’s attack in the Western Desert, in which 12 people died and 10 more were wounded.
She had said earlier she would speak with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi about repatriating the survivors and the remains of the dead.
But only hours after the foreign ministers appeared together and Shoukry vowed that Egypt would vigorously pursue a “transparent investigation” into “this regrettable incident”, the Egyptian prosecutor general issued a gag order banning all media, both domestic and global , from discussing the case. “Nowhere to take shelter, nowhere to run”, she added.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister also visited the wounded in hospital, accompanied by family members of the victims.
Egyptian forces were conducting a security operation in the area and mistook the group for Islamist militants, they said. She said they planned to visit Europe as part of a “lifetime trip” that they had organized.
“I saw my husband when they put me on a stretcher to take me to hospital”, Calderon said. “I assure the Mexican people that an impartial inquiry is being held, under the leadership of Egypt’s Prime Minister himself, and that Egypt is prepared to do its utmost to help in any way it can”.
“We were bombed some five times, always from the air”, she said.
“It would defy reason to think that Egypt’s law enforcement authorities could ever deliberately harm innocent tourists”, he wrote.
The incident has proven embarrassing for Egypt, which relies heavily on tourism revenues.
Egypt has been roiled by turmoil since the military ousted Mohamed Morsi – the country’s first freely elected president – in a 2013 coup.
Last month, Egypt’s branch of the Islamic State group, which calls itself Sinai Province, beheaded a Croatian oil worker, who was abducted near Cairo, at the edge of the Western Desert.
The editorial acknowledges that there are similarities between the two countries, with Mexico also having to face the dilemma of collateral victims in their war against organised crime.
The group of 22 had stopped for a barbecue at Bahariya Oasis in the Western Desert. Ruiz Massieu said she shared the “indignation” over the matter with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and the Mexican people.
Advertisement
Egyptian officials initially claimed the convoy of SUVs had wandered into an off-limits area of Egypt’s western desert.
