Without a single government official in attendance and no public statement of condolence, ten agricultural workers, including seven children, were laid to rest this week in Fayoum and Menoufiya, their deaths the latest in a string of preventable tragedies in Egypt’s informal farming sector.
On Sunday evening, thousands gathered in Ma’sarat Sawy village, Fayoum, to bury five children and two women who died when a Suzuki minivan caught fire on the Giza regional highway. The van was transporting them home after a day picking tomatoes. Five others suffered severe burns.
That same night, the villages of Shenway and Saqiyet Abu Sha’ra in Menoufiya mourned four additional victims: two 17-year-old boys, a 20-year-old woman, and a minibus driver. They were killed when a truck struck their vehicle beneath the Rasat Bridge while en route to a produce packing center near Cairo. Fourteen others were injured, most of them children, with one succumbing to their injuries on Monday morning.
Neither the Ministry of Labor nor the Ministry of Social Solidarity commented on the twin tragedies. Their official platforms remained silent, as did local authorities. No one from either governorate attended the funerals. The absence, residents say, cut just as deep as the loss itself.
“We didn’t see a single official,” said a relative of one of the victims in Ma’sarat Sawy. “Not even a phone call.”
Mohamed Ali, a relative of one of the burned victims, told Al Manassa that the bodies were so badly charred that families couldn’t identify them. DNA testing at Zeinhom Morgue was required to confirm the victims’ identities, delaying burial permits until Sunday.
Ali added that the Suzuki van was crammed with 12 passengers—double its legal capacity. “This is routine,” he said. “Farmers from our village are piled into overloaded microbuses or trucks, working for 150 Egyptian pounds a day. In summer, it’s open pickups. In winter, these deathtrap vans.”
Families, he said, are forced to send children to work. The five children killed in Fayoum were between 12 and 15 years old. One of the deceased women had brought her young son with her—he survived, but with burns covering 70% of his body.
These are not isolated cases. They are part of a recurring, deadly pattern.
In June, 18 girls were killed, and three others injured when a microbus carrying them to a grape farm collided with a truck on the regional highway in Ashmoun, Menoufiya.
In May 2024, 17 young women drowned, and eight others were injured when their microbus plunged from a river ferry in Abu Ghalib, Monshaat al-Qanater district. They were returning from a day’s labor in Menoufiya’s fields.
In January 2022, eight minors were killed and 22 more injured when an overloaded pickup truck carrying underage farmworkers crashed off a ferry near Qatta village, also in Monshaat al-Qanater. They were coming home from a poultry farm.
