Thousands die every year on Egypt's roads, a death toll that routinely raises questions about safety and respect for traffic laws. But a collision this week that killed 18 people, mostly children, has touched the hearts of millions and dominated social media.
Most of those killed were farm workers from underprivileged backgrounds, whose deaths have raised questions about Egyptian society and accusations of exploitation.
The accident happened on Tuesday near the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, east of Cairo, when two pick-up trucks carrying seasonal farm workers collided. Besides the deaths – which included six siblings – 30 were injured.
The victims were mostly youngsters from villages in the Al Sharqiyah province. Thousands attended their funerals.
The high death toll of the accident, the latest in a series that has claimed the lives of scores of young seasonal farm workers, attracted the attention of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
He ordered a swift investigation to establish the cause of the crash and ordered health authorities to give the best medical care to the injured. He also instructed his government to speed up the process of providing families of the casualties with financial compensation.
Investigating prosecutors issued a statement on Wednesday, saying the collision happened when the right back tyre of one of the pick-up trucks punctured, causing it to collide with the other vehicle that was travelling in the opposite direction.
Tuesday's crash was reminiscent to another in June last year, when at least 18 girls and women between the ages of 14 and 20 were killed in a road accident.
Mostly schoolgirls from poor families, they were on their way to a farm north of Cairo to harvest grapes for less than $3 a day when their minibus collided with a lorry.
This week's accident has dominated the nightly talk shows on pro-government Egyptian broadcast networks, with the hosts' focus chiefly on the President's intervention and admiration for the way with which authorities dealt with the tragedy.
Social media was quickly filled up with video clips of tearful parents mourning the death of their children and traumatised survivors incoherently recounting what had happened.
However, critics on social media platforms – the only place in Egypt where a measure of freedom of speech is practised – spoke of the unnecessary death of so many because of the lack of suitable transport for the workers, who ride on the back of pick-up trucks with nothing to ensure their safety.
They also pointed out that illegal employment of children from underprivileged families as labourers on private farms violated long-standing work laws and harked back to feudal times.
Many linked child labour to the country's growing poverty and the desperate pursuit of wages – the victims made less than $2 for their eight-hour shift on farms – by heads of families pushed into sending their children to work to make ends meet.
“There's a history of suffering for those left alone … to be exploited without anyone doing anything to ensure that employers pay suitable wages and provide safe transport,” wrote Ammar Ali Hassan, a prominent sociologist and author on Facebook.
“Everyone is being squeezed, melted or crushed and offered in gold glasses for the precious few so they can remain prosperous and live well.”
