At least 18 killed in South Sinai collision

At least 18 people were killed on Wednesday when a truck and a minibus collided in the South Sinai city of Abu Rudeis.

The victims included 12 police conscripts, who had been assigned to the Dahab police station, and four students, while the other two victims remain unidentified, police said.

Defence Minister Sedki Sobhi has ordered the transfer of the bodies to Cairo in a military aircraft.

Road traffic crashes claim about 12,000 lives every year in Egypt, according to a 2012 UN report.

The high road traffic fatality rate is mainly due to poor road safety and loosely enforced traffic regulations.

Meanwhile in the governorate of Giza, two police officers and one civilian were injured in a bombing in Faisal Street.

Giza security chief Ahmed Higazy told reporters that the makeshift bomb targeted a police armoured vehicle as it passed through the busy street.

In January, nine people, including four Egyptian policemen, were killed in a bomb explosion when a team of officers raided a residential apartment in Giza.

The bomb went off while the bomb squad tried to defuse it, killing and wounding members of the security forces and some civilians who were in the building, according to the interior ministry.