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Tourists at Sakkara Pyramids, photo by Peter Andrews, Reuters
CAIRO, Sep 17 (Aswat Masriya) – Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu along with six of the wounded and their relatives left Cairo on Thursday, said the Mexican Embassy in Egypt.
In what has been officially described as an accident, Egypt’s security forces killed 12, including eight Mexican tourists, and injured 10 others near Bahariya oasis, a tourist site at the Western desert on Sunday, mistaking them for militants.
According to Reuters, Egyptian forces bombed the convoy of Mexican tourists around 5 times over a period of 3 hours, even after security forces on the ground had stopped them twice and cleared their passage, one of six survivors of Sunday's deadly attack told Mexican newspaper El Universal from her hospital bed.
Massieu arrived in Egypt on Wednesday morning with seven family members of the Mexican citizens.
The incident prompted Mexico's condemnation. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto described it as “tragic” and demanded that the Egyptian government conduct “a thorough investigation.”
During her visit to Egypt, Massieu met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri.
Shukri wrote an open letter to the people of Mexico, expressing his condolences and emphasizing that Egypt is still in the process of investigating the incident.
The Egyptian prosecutor general's office has announced a gag order on all news related to the investigation until its conclusion.