Egypt : Two Vietnamese tourists killed in an attack near the pyramids

Two Vietnamese tourists were killed and ten injured on Friday in an improvised explosive device as their buses passed near the Giza Pyramid site in Cairo, the Interior Ministry said.

The bus carried fourteen Vietnamese tourists, the ministry said in a statement. The attack occurred in the late afternoon.

« An improvised explosive device exploded as a bus carrying 14 Vietnamese tourists passed through, » he reported, citing « two dead and 10 injured » among tourists.

The driver and an employee of a tourism company were also injured, according to him.

Security forces were dispatched to the area, the ministry continued.

Egypt has been the target of numerous attacks by extremist groups, mainly targeting security forces and the Coptic Christian minority.

Security at tourist sites in Egypt has been increased as a result of these attacks.

On 31 October 2015, the Islamic State (EI) jihadist group claimed a bomb attack that killed the 224 occupants of a Russian plane carrying Russian tourists after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, a seaside resort in southern Sinai.

This attack has dealt a severe blow to tourism in Egypt, a key sector of the economy, already affected by political instability since the 2011 popular uprising that brought down President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt had experienced a revival in the tourism sector in recent months, with 8.2 million visitors in 2017, according to official figures.

But the country is still far from the 14.7 million tourists of 2010.