{"id":6731,"date":"2018-12-29T11:31:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T07:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=6731"},"modified":"2018-12-29T11:31:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T07:31:09","slug":"deadly-blast-hits-tour-bus-near-giza-pyramids-in-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/12\/29\/deadly-blast-hits-tour-bus-near-giza-pyramids-in-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly blast hits tour bus near Giza pyramids in Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">A roadside blast has killed four people &#8211; three Vietnamese tourists and a local tour guide &#8211; and injured 12 others on a bus near the Giza pyramids in Egypt, officials say.<\/p>\n<p>A bomb hidden beside a wall went off as the bus carrying 14 Vietnamese tourists was passing.<\/p>\n<p>Two people were critically wounded, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said.<\/p>\n<p>The bus hit the device after it went off its planned route without alerting security forces, Mr Madbouly added.<\/p>\n<p>All of the injured are Vietnamese tourists apart from the bus driver, who is Egyptian.<\/p>\n<p>There were no immediate reports of any group saying it was behind the attack, but Islamist militants have targeted tourists in the past.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">What do we know of Friday&#8217;s attack?<\/h2>\n<p>The bomb went off at about 18:15 (16:45 GMT) on Maryoutiya Street in Giza&#8217;s Haram district, the interior ministry says.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/036D\/production\/_104977800_egyptgiza122018.png\" alt=\"BBC map\" width=\"734\" height=\"413\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>Security forces rushed to the scene in response and police are investigating.<\/p>\n<p>The injured were taken to the nearby Haram hospital, Reuters news agency reports.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have been in contact with the embassy of Vietnam to contain the impact of the incident, and what is important now is to take care of the injured,&#8221; Prime Minister Madbouly was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">How has tourism fared in Egypt in recent years?<\/h2>\n<p>Tourism is a mainstay of the economy. It peaked in 2010, when the country saw more than 14 million visitors, but fell sharply after the turmoil of the Arab Spring the following year.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/9FAD\/production\/_104977804_051337896-1.jpg\" alt=\"Tourists ride on camels in front of the Giza Pyramids, in Giza, Egypt, 26 December 2018\" width=\"791\" height=\"526\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\">The pyramids of Giza are a major draw<\/span><\/figure>\n<p>Worse was to come after\u00a0militants bombed a Russian passenger jet in 2015 as it left Sharm el Sheikh, killing 224 people.<\/p>\n<p>The following year just 5.3 million tourists visited, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n<p>However,\u00a0the sector has since recovered and 8.3 million people visited in 2017, the Financial Times reports.<\/p>\n<p>President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told visiting Vietnamese leaders in May that he was keen to revive Vietnamese tourism\u00a0in his country, according to Egypt Today.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A roadside blast has killed four people &#8211; three Vietnamese tourists and a local tour guide &#8211; and injured 12 others on a bus near the Giza pyramids in Egypt, officials say. A bomb hidden beside a wall went off as the bus carrying 14 Vietnamese tourists was passing. Two people were critically wounded, Prime &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6735,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions\/6735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}