Egypt4u

News breaking here is that Egyptians security forces have kiled 12 Mexican tourists, mistaking them for terrorists. The mind boggles how do you mistake a 'Mexican' for a terrorist? or is it that they cannot spell 'terrorists' as opposed to 'tourist' ? another nail in the coffin of tourism.

Unbelievable, they must have been well-off Mexicans to even get to Egypt, so they probably had nice clothes and cameras and stuff. Feel sorry for the ex-pats in Egypt, shame they didnt have the sense to get out earlier .... wonder what happened to Choccie/Justin ? ?

wonder what happened to Choccie/Justin ? ?

I reckon he is keeping a low profile for some reason, maybe trying to rent out (or sell) his villa to some dim Aussies. I bet that as we speak he is making his plans to move over to Oz, he never really settled in Egypt and never did enough research before going there, a shame really.

That is pretty sad. You'd think that the Military guys would have really confirmed their target before blowing it away. On the other hand don't know why Mexicans were travelling around where they were and kinda wonder why they maybe didn't really LOOK like tourists and/or if there were orders to STOP etc (just speculation on my part) that they didn't comply.

Just another tragic happening today.

One report definitely states that a helicopter fired on them initially; another report shows the actual permissions to be travelling there; another that they were forced to make an unauthorised stop because one passenger was taken ill - all very confusing! as to why they were there, well, the White Desert and the oases are recognised tourist attractions.

No doubt another example of conflicting issues, one the need for the security forces to protect an area from insurgents and the other of tourist revenue. Very likely that there was some sort of military activity going on at the time and in the same oasis area as the tourists were visiting, then the tourist convoy became confused as being the insurgents and was fired upon. The problem is that in any sensitive security area the troops are usually operating on a hair trigger basis and will react with very little time to think, especially in a confused situation.

With all the chaos that is going on between mass hordes of refugees running about, ISIS on the move, general terror, crazy tourists breaking the rules etc etc etc I'm actually amazed more of these issues are not happening.