16 killed as bus falls off Egyptian ferry

Sixteen people, including six children, died today when a microbus they were in fell off a rickety ferry and sank in the Nile River in southern Egypt, security and local officials said.

The accident happened because the bus driver did not use the emergency brakes to prevent the vehicle from moving as the ferry carried it from the river’s east bank to the west bank near the village of Deir Mawas in Minya province about 130 miles south of Cairo, said Minya police chief, Mahmoud Noureddin.