I Take Responsibility For Bus Crash But Won’t Resign: Egypt’s Education Minister

Egypt’s education minister Mahmoud Abu El-Nasr said he takes responsiblity for Wednesday’s deadly accident that claimed the lives of students, but believes that resigning isn’t the right reaction.

“I wanted to resign after the deadly crash that killed students but then thought a soldier should not run away from the battle,” Abu El-Nasr told Al-Arabiya news website in an interview late Thursday.

On Wednesday, 18 people, mostly students, were killed and as many were injured when a school bus hit a truck in Beheira governorate in the Nile Delta.

Abu El-Nasr said that he is responsible for all Egyptian students and all the recent accidents that have been lately taking place in schools.

He promised that the number of these incidents will decrease in the upcoming period.

The education ministry has witnessed three incidents that killed three students in October alone.

One student was killed and another injured when they were hit by a vehicle delivering food supplies to a primary school in Atfieh, Giza.

A seven-year-old student was killed two weeks into the month during recess in a school in the town of Negila in Marsa Matrouh governorate when the school’s gate fell on him.

Earlier in October, a student in third primary class in a school in Cairo’s Mataria district was killed when the window glass of his classroom fell and broke through his neck.

In 2012, 50 students died when a school bus crashed with a train killed in Upper Egypt’s Assiut, sparking anger nationwide.

Source : Ahram online