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Egypt rail workers lose appeal over deadly crash

Egyptians walk past the site of an accident near a railway crossing/AFP

Egyptians walk past the site of an accident near a railway crossing/AFP

CAIRO, Feb 27 – An appeals court in Egypt on Thursday upheld 10 year jail terms for two railway workers convicted after a 2012 train crash killed 47 schoolchildren, judicial sources said.

The children, aged between 4 and 12, were on a school trip when a train hit their bus on a railway crossing in Manfalut, 360 kilometres (220 miles) south of Cairo.

The workers were originally convicted in June 2013 by a misdemeanour court for manslaughter and negligence, the sources said.

In addition to the jail terms, they were each fined 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,300, 10,500 euros), the sources said.

The collision, which the state news agency said killed 52 people and injured 16, sparked public outrage.

Media blamed the then president Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement for failing to confront the country’s chronic transport problems.

The railway network’s poor safety record stems largely from a lack of maintenance and poor management.

In Egypt’s deadliest railway tragedy, the bodies of more than 360 passengers were recovered from a train after a fire in 2002.

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