The head of the Administrative Prosecution Authority (APA) Amani Al-Rafey ordered the referral of 10 officials at the Egyptian National Railways Authority to disciplinary measures due to negligence.
The officials are accused of neglect in performing their duties, which resulted in the derailing of the Al-Maraziq train.
In July, a passenger train derailed on a railway track near Badrashin station close to Giza, injuring 58 commuters, but no fatalities were reported, according to the Ministry of Health.
The investigation began after the APA received a report from the Ministry of Transportation to determine the reasons behind the incident and find the person responsible for that calamity.
What’s more, previously, Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek ordered the formation of a technical committee of specialists from the armed forces and the confiscation of the train’s black box, in order to investigate and identify the cause of the accident.
The prosecution’s investigation revealed that the black box was stolen, immediately following the incident, in addition to the theft of other devices, which were placed on the railway.
Egypt’s railways have suffered for a long time from a lack of safety standards throughought successive governments. According to an official statement by the Egyptian National Railways and the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics in 2017, a total of 12,326 rail accidents took place from 2006 to 2017.
