Two Vietnamese holidaymakers and an Egyptian tour guide were killed Friday when a roadside bomb blast hit their bus as it travelled close to the Giza pyramids outside Cairo, officials said. An interior ministry statement said 10 other tourists from Vietnam and the Egyptian bus driver were wounded when the homemade device exploded at 6:15 pm (1645 GMT).
The improvised explosive device was placed near a wall along the Mariyutiya Street in Al-Haram district near the Giza Pyramids, the statement said. Armed security personnel quickly deployed to the site and cordoned off the area for inspection.
The white tourist bus could be seen with its windows shattered and surrounded by soot-covered debris. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli was set to visit the injured tourists in hospital after following up with his ministers on the incident, a government statement said. Madbouli said that the Egyptian tour guide had died in hospital from his wounds. Egypt's tourism industry has been struggling to recover from terror attacks and domestic instability that has hit the country in recent years.
In July 2017, two German tourists were stabbed to death by a suspected jihadist assailant at the Egyptian Red Sea beach resort of Hurgada. In October 2015, a bomb claimed by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group killed 224 people on board a passenger jet carrying Russian tourists over the Sinai peninsula.