KABUL: (MEP) Fifteen people have drowned after a small ferryboat overturned on New Year’s Eve in Egypt’s Nile River north of Cairo overnight, the country’s authorities said.
The chief of the country’s River Transport Authority, Reda Ismail, told the state MENA news agency that the ferry did not have a license to operate between the Nile Delta villages.
The boat sank late Thursday in the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh. It was not immediately clear what had caused the accident. Afterward, angry villagers gathered on the banks of the Nile, but the police “contained the situation,” MENA reported.
Three survivors of the accident were hospitalized.
According to officials, the boat was carrying 18 people although its maximum capacity was seven passengers.
The accident came months after at least 36 Egyptians were killed when a party boat collided with a cargo ship in the Nile.
