Egypt rail workers lose appeal over deadly crash

An appeals court in Egypt on Thursday upheld 10-year jail terms for two railway workers convicted after a 2012 train crash killed 47 schoolchildren, judicial sources said. The children, aged between 4 and 12, were on a school trip when a train hit their bus on a railway crossing in Manfalut, 360 kilometres (220 miles) south of Cairo. The workers were originally convicted in June 2013 by a misdemeanour court for manslaughter and negligence, the sources said. In addition to the jail terms, they were each fined 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,300, 10,500 euros), the sources said. The collision, which the state news agency said killed 52 people and injured 16, sparked public outrage. Media blamed the-then president Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement for failing to confront the country's chronic transport problems. The railway network's poor safety record stems largely from a lack of maintenance and poor management. In Egypt's deadliest railway tragedy, the bodies of more than 360 passengers were recovered from a train after a fire in 2002.