Prime Minister Hesham Qandil has announced that the compensation for the families of the victims of the Assiut train crash will be EGP 50,000 for each family. He also denied reports that emerged on Saturday claiming that the compensation would be much lower.
Qandil announced that the official figures for compensation will be “EGP 50,000 for the families of each of the deceased and EGP 12,000 for the families of those who were injured.”
In a statement Qandil said “to clarify what was reported by some media, that the value of the compensation was EGP 4,000, is absolutely not true and I do not know which source announced this.” He added, “I have been wondering what the reason was for the hasty announcement of such a provocative figure so soon after the incident.”
State owned news agency Ahram originally reported the compensation figure to be EGP 5,000. This figure caused much anger from the families involved and safety activists, who were making comparisons between the value of a life and an iPad.
A train crashed in to a school bus at around 7am on Saturday morning, claiming the lives of 51 people, mostly children between the ages of four and six. The minister of transportation, Rashad Al-Mateeny and the railway authority chief, Mostafa Qenawi both resigned following the crash.
On Sunday political parties and NGOs protested, calling for the minister to be tried for negligence.
