Seventeen dead in car explosion in central Cairo: health ministry

  • August 5, 2019

People extinguish a fire from a blast outside the National Cancer Institute, Cairo, Egypt August 4, 2019. REUTERS/Shokry Hussien

Seventeen people have died and 32 have been injured in an explosion outside Egypt’s National Cancer Institute in central Cairo, Egypt’s health ministry said early on Monday.

A car driving against traffic on Cairo’s corniche collided with three other cars, causing the explosion, Egypt’s interior ministry said in a statement.

Egypt’s public prosecutor is investigating the cause of the incident, sources told Reuters, but there was no official statement indicating that the explosion was an attack.