Crowd in Egypt Attacks Railway Guard after 2 Children are Run Over

A general view of a street in downtown Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2017. Reuters
A general view of a street in downtown Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2017. Reuters
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Crowd in Egypt Attacks Railway Guard after 2 Children are Run Over

A general view of a street in downtown Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2017. Reuters
A general view of a street in downtown Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2017. Reuters

Angry residents attacked a railway guard and his post in a town outside Cairo on Monday after a train ran over and killed two children, officials said.

A crowd descended on the intersection near the town of Bilaydah in the city of Al-Ayat, where a train earlier killed two children trying to cross using an area not intended for pedestrians, according to the Egyptian National Railways, The AP reported.

They attacked the guard who was securing the level crossing, which authorities said was closed at the time, and set fire to his room, officials said. It wasn't immediately clear what happened to the guard.

Local media reported that the two children were on their way to school.

Train accidents are common in Egypt. A train crash earlier this month killed one person and injured more than 20 others in southern Egypt.

In recent years, the government has announced initiatives to improve railways.



French-Algerian Author Boualem Sansal Handed Five-year Sentence

A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
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French-Algerian Author Boualem Sansal Handed Five-year Sentence

A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

A court in Algeria on Thursday sentenced an award-winning French-Algerian writer to five years in prison. The case against 76-year-old Boualem Sansal has become a flashpoint in growing tensions between the Algerian and French governments.

Sansal was arrested in November and stood trial for undermining Algeria's territorial integrity.

A court in Dar El Beida, near Algiers, sentenced "the defendant in his presence to a five-year prison term" with a fine of 500,000 Algerian dinars ($3,730).

Last week, prosecutors at an Algiers court requested a 10-year prison sentence for the novelist whose work has remained available in Algeria despite his criticism of the government.

Though Sansal was relatively unknown in France before his arrest, the trial has sparked a wave of support from French intellectuals and officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed the accusations against Sansal as "not serious", but had expressed confidence in Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's "clarity of vision" on the matter.

Macron has repeatedly called for the writer's release, citing his fragile state of health due to cancer.

Sansal's French lawyer, Francois Zimeray, condemned the decision in a post on X as "a sentence that betrays the very meaning of the word justice.

"His age and his health make every day he spends in jail even more inhuman. I appeal to the Algerian presidence: justice has failed, let humanity at least prevail."

According to his French publisher, Sansal is 80 years old.

France's Foreign Ministry said later Thursday that it was disappointed in the verdict and called for a “rapid, humanitarian and dignified” resolution to the case.