Tourist bus targeted near Giza pyramids with large explosion; 17 injured
A bomb blast hit a tourist bus near Egypt's famed Giza pyramids on Sunday, wounding at least 17, including several South Africans, in the latest blow to the country's tourism industry.
The roadside bomb went off as the bus was being driven through Giza, also causing injuries to Egyptians in a nearby car, medical and security sources told AFP.
Security and medical sources said 17 people were hurt, without giving a breakdown of their nationalities. No deaths were reported.
South Africa said in a statement that the "bus explosion" injured three of its 28 citizens who were part of the tourist group.
A witness, Mohamed el-Mandouh, told Reuters he heard a "very loud explosion" while sitting in traffic near the site of the blast.
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Images posted online showed a bus with its windows blown out or shattered, with debris in the road next to a low wall with a hole in it.
The explosion happened a few hundred metres from the Grand Egyptian Museum, not far from the site of a roadside blast that hit another tourist bus in December.
The museum is due to open next year as the new home for some of the country's top antiquities on a site adjoining the world-famous Giza pyramids. It is part of an effort to boost tourism, a key source of foreign revenue for Egypt.
The sector has been recovering after tourist numbers dropped in the wake of a 2011 uprising and the 2015 bombing of a Russian passenger jet.
There was no damage to the museum from the blast, which happened 50 metres from its outer fence and more than 400 metres from the museum building, the antiquities ministry said in a statement.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Egyptian security forces are waging a counter-insurgency campaign against militants, some with links to the Islamic State group, that is focussed in the north of the Sinai Peninsula.
In December 2018, three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian guide were killed and at least 10 other people were injured when a roadside bomb hit their tour bus less than three miles from the Giza pyramids.
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