Eight children died on Saturday after the vehicle bringing them back from the fields overturned in a canal in the Nile delta in northern Egypt, a local official told AFP.
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The eight teenagers, aged 12 to 15 according to the local press, “went every evening to harvest potatoesSaid, on condition of anonymity, this official living in the Itay al-Baroud sector, in the province of Beheira, where the accident took place.
In this rural governorate located between Cairo and Alexandria, almost one inhabitant in two is officially considered poor and the number of out-of-school children is one of the highest in the country.
The victims of this accident which occurred at dawn were going to college, the official said, but they worked at night to help their parents.
The foreman who was driving them survived him and was arrested for questioning, the same source said.
Egyptian law authorizes work from the age of 15 and tolerates the seasonal employment of children from the age of 13.
The latest data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) – which dates back to 2012 – shows nearly two million children working, mostly in the agricultural sector but also as domestic workers or in factories, often in contact with machines or dangerous products.
This figure is very probably higher today because in 10 years, the population has increased by 25 million inhabitants and those under 15 now constitute a third of the 103 million Egyptians.
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Traffic accidents are common in Egypt, where roads are often poorly maintained and traffic laws are not enforced. They officially took the lives of 7,000 people in 2020.