Twelve people, including Mexican tourists, have been mistakenly killed by security forces in Egypt during an anti-terror operation.
The tourists were travelling in four vehicles yesterday which apparently entered a restricted zone which was ‘off limits to foreign tourists’ in the Wahat area of the Western Desert, an interior ministry statement said.
The tour company transporting the tourists ‘did not have permits and did not inform authorities’, tourism ministry spokesman Rasha Azaz told the AP news agency.
Ten Mexicans and Egyptians were also injured and are being treated in a local hospital, reports the BBC.
The ministry said it had formed a team to investigate the incident.
A joint force from the Egyptian police and military had been pursuing militants in the area – which borders Libya – when the incident happened, officials say.
