Security forces in Egypt have mistakenly killed 12 people, including Mexican tourists, during an anti-terror operation, the interior ministry says.<\/p>\n
The tourists were travelling in four vehicles that entered a restricted zone in the Wahat area of the Western Desert, a ministry statement said.<\/p>\n
Ten Mexicans and Egyptians were also injured and are being treated in a local hospital.<\/p>\n
The ministry said it had formed a team to investigate the incident.<\/p>\n
Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned the incident and said he had “demanded an exhaustive investigation by the Egyptian government”.<\/p>\n
The Mexican foreign ministry confirmed that at least two of its nationals had been killed and said it was working to confirm the identities of the other victims.<\/p>\n
In a statement, it said Mexico’s ambassador in Egypt, Jorge Alvarez Fuentes, had visited the local hospital and spoken to five Mexicans who were in a stable condition.<\/p>\n
‘Mistakenly dealt with’<\/strong> It said the incident happened on Sunday in an area that “was off limits to foreign tourists” but it did not give an exact location.<\/p>\n The tour company transporting the tourists “did not have permits and did not inform authorities”, tourism ministry spokesman Rasha Azaz told the AP news agency.<\/p>\n The vast Western Desert area is popular with foreign sightseers, but is also attractive to militants, reports the BBC’s Orla Guerin in Cairo.<\/p>\n A joint force from the Egyptian police and military was pursuing militants in the area – which borders Libya – when the incident happened, officials say.<\/p>\n The region is a gateway to the long border and weapons are available on the other side, our correspondent adds.<\/p>\n On Sunday, the Islamic State (IS) group in Egypt claimed it had “resisted a military operation” in the desert.<\/p>\n A group claiming to be affiliated with IS also said on Sunday that it was present in Farafra.<\/p>\n The insurgency in Egypt gathered momentum after the army overthrew Islamist President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013 following protests against his rule.<\/p>\n The government says hundreds of police and soldiers have been killed, many of them in attacks claimed by IS’s Sinai Province affiliate.<\/p>\n Up until recently most of the fighting has taken place in the Sinai Peninsula with occasional attacks taking place in Cairo and other cities.<\/p>\n In July, Egypt vowed to rid the Sinai Peninsula of militants after major clashes with IS fighters there killed more than 100 people.<\/p>\n It said that operations will not stop until the area is cleared of militants.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Security forces in Egypt have mistakenly killed 12 people, including Mexican tourists, during an anti-terror operation, the interior ministry says. The tourists were travelling in four vehicles that entered a restricted zone in the Wahat area of the Western Desert, a ministry statement said. Ten Mexicans and Egyptians were also injured and are being treated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":151358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-151356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/151358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe statement (in Arabic) from Egypt’s interior ministry said the four vehicles the tourists were travelling in were “mistakenly dealt with” during a joint military police and armed forces operation.<\/p>\n